


Stargazing

by amczingphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Astronaut!Dan, Astronauts, Explicit Language, M/M, Outer Space, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, Phanfiction, it's dan guys, mission control!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 07:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10509423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amczingphil/pseuds/amczingphil
Summary: *second place for most memorable fic in the Phanfic Awards 2017*Dan has been floating about the International Space Station for about two months when he gets the first phone call from Phil, the newest member of mission control, and somehow a quick conversation helps Dan feel at ease and  becomes the first of many.It's just a shame that there's 400km between them and Dan won't be coming home for another seven months





	1. ET Phones Home

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on a headcannon on tumblr by @phandomsub
> 
> I may be a bit of a space nerd but i am not a professional on the subject. 
> 
> Dan and Phil are their own people and this is purely a work of fiction.

 

If Dan had asked himself when he was fourteen what he thought he would be doing in ten years’ time, he would've said something along the lines of being a defence lawyer or an accountant at a large, boring firm; he would’ve said something that required a university degree and an inkling of intelligence but that didn't necessarily seem exciting or fulfilling. That was because he had thought that he was expected to get a degree and a job and live out a monotonous life until he retired or died. So the fact that Dan was currently living in his ‘ten years later’ constantly baffled him, because there he was floating around the International Space Station, 400 kilometres above earth and everyone he loved, which was, obviously, a vastly different job than being an accountant.   
  
For many astronauts, the decision to embrace a job that took them away from earth was usually one that was made in childhood as an awestruck, gangly kid who stared up at the stars one night and declared to their bemused parents that someday they would go up there. For Dan it was a spontaneous decision made at the age of fifteen during a careers fair while his family and teachers were pressuring him to make a career decision. He had been reading s fantasy novel at the time and suddenly decided that he wanted to go into space just like the characters in his book had.   
  
So, with all the commitment of a determined teen, his subject choices were made as ones that would allow him to follow this newly chosen path. Dan wasn't an idiot, he heard the whispers and saw the glances towards him out of the corners of people's eyes. Nobody believed that he would get to the point where he was actually being considered as an employee for NASA, never mind the fact that he was currently floating along a corridor in the International Space Station.   
  
When he told his parents that he had been accepted into university they had been proud of him but were quick to remind him to not get his hopes up, it was a difficult and competitive field and he should be happy that he was accepted but he shouldn't expect too much, there was too many applicants and too few jobs at the end of the road. Dan had been disheartened by the words at first, as would most people, but eventually he used their lack of faith to fuel his will to get to the end.   
  
Dan would always remember the day when he had received confirmation of his job, he had been so excited to tell his parents and show them that he had done it, he had actually made it through university and he had managed to be part of the handful of students who had applied for jobs and actually gotten them at the end of the day. He was a success story. Yet when he had called up excitedly he had been given a half-hearted congratulations and a reminder that a job working for NASA did not mean that he would definitely become an astronaut and go up into space. It had stung worse than the scepticism throughout his education had, there he had been, telling the most important people in his life that he had managed to get a respectable job which he was excited for and passionate about and there was nobody matching his level of enthusiasm.   
  
For the first time in his life, Dan had felt completely alone. It was the first time but it most definitely was not the last time. Dan’s current trip away from the earth was a relatively small mission in comparison with some of the others. It was just Dan and two other people, a tall Hispanic woman called Mariana, although she preferred to be called Mari, she was very self-contained and that was all Dan knew about her because trying to get a conversation out of her was impossible and Dan would have had more luck talking to the cycle ergometer. Despite the crippling feeling of being completely alone even when she was around Dan would have taken her presence over that of Thomas, a very short and angry American.

Dan had heard people refer to him as Tommy before but had never done so himself, he was concerned that if he ever attempted such a thing Thomas would somehow murder him and let his body drift off into the nothingness of space, then he would somehow swing it so that nobody asked any questions. Dan would just be gone, all because he tried to use a nickname for Scary Thomas.

Dan knew that the main reason Thomas had a problem with him was because of their age difference, with Dan being twenty four and Thomas being thirty eight, Dan was usually the brunt of many jokes  despite his competence and experience, not to mention that Dan had reached Commander status. None of that mattered to Thomas, as far as he was concerned Dan was a schoolboy who couldn’t tell his ass from his armpit. It made cooperative team working a challenge and it would’ve helped Dan’s case if Mari had sided with him but she stayed well away from their spats and never offered an opinion either way.

“Howell, phone call.” Thomas’ rough voice called. “Someone decided to call and check up on the kiddo and make sure he isn’t feeling homesick, make sure you lie and tell them you're taking your naps to keep from getting crabby.”

Dan rolled his eyes but didn’t bother to grace Thomas with a reply, anything Dan said would just supply him with more incentive, and instead he drifted through the space station to where the phone was kept. Dan was always impressed by the phone in the space station, despite the vast distance from the earth, all phone calls were of such a great quality that he might as well have been phoning someone in the next room. The only thing that he was confused about was who would be phoning him, his family didn’t phone him, it was usually Dan who had to call them if he wanted to talk and he couldn’t be bothered with that as he always felt as though he was being an inconvenience or a bother whenever he felt homesick and wanted to talk.

“Hello?” Dan said hesitantly.

“Hi, I'm hoping this is Commander Howell and the rude guy didn’t pull a fast one on me.” A northern voice said cheerfully.

“It is, uh, Dan is fine though.” Dan mumbled in confusion, he didn’t recognise the voice on the other end, was this actually a prank? Was Thomas in on this?

“Oh right of course sorry, I thought you might be like your buddy and expect to be addressed by your title.” The man said with a nervous giggle.

“Thomas is an ass, don’t let him get to you.” Dan said. “Speaking of names, you wouldn’t mind telling me yours, would you?”

“Oh yeah, it’s Phil. Phil Lester, I work with mission control.” Phil said. “Today is technically my first day so I thought I would call and introduce myself.”

“Technically?” Dan asked, intrigued.

“Well I was working yesterday but that was mainly just being shown around and introduced to everyone.” Phil said. “Today is my first day being let loose.”

“Let loose.” Dan quoted with a laugh. “Not that I’m complaining, because I'm really not, but why did you chose to call me.”

“Well if I'm being honest, I was just trying to get anybody and ended up with you. Thomas was too rude to talk to and he said you were the only one who would actually reply to me.”

“He wasn’t that polite when he said that, was he?” Dan asked.

“Well, no.” Phil admitted. “Don’t bother asking me what he said though as I have a strict no swearing policy. There might be five year olds listening.”

“I don’t think I would want to know anyway.” Dan sighed. “Why would five year olds be listening to a conversation between an astronaut and a member of mission control?”

“You never know, Dan, you never know.”

“How mysterious.” Dan deadpanned. “That no swearing policy better only apply to you then, pal, because there is no way you will get anybody on this space station to agree to a conversation devoid of any curse words.”

“It does and don’t worry, I kind of have a feeling you’ll be the only person I talk to on this mission.”

It spoke volumes for how lonely Dan was that those words filled him with a sense of relief. He hadn’t scared off this guy, he was actually going to have someone to talk with regularly. 

“How are you guys getting on by the way?” Phil asked, pulling Dan out of his thoughts. “You’ve been away nearly two months, right? How you coping with grumpy mcgrumpy face?”

“Way to rip off a boat Phil.” Dan chuckled. “I’m doing fine so far, the repairs around the station and tests keep things going and the time passes rather fast.”

“Technically not ripping off a boat since they didn’t choose that name for it.” Phil defended himself. “Are you ready for the EVA tomorrow?”

“As ready as I can be, I’ve done all of my equipment checks and stocked up on everything that we might need.” Dan said.

An EVA - Extravehicular Activity - or a spacewalk was a venture outside. Dan would be suited up and strolling about in the vacuum of space like a tiny flea wandering the Earth. If people thought the ocean was scary then they needed to see was Dan was facing, he would take the deepest sea dive any day.

“Are you scared?”

“Terrified.” Dan admitted for the first time since leaving Earth.

“It’s ok to be scared.” Phil said without hesitation. “You’d be an idiot not to be. I think someone once said that if you’re not scared then you don’t know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Dan said.

“You still don’t seem very reassured.” Phil said.

“Would you be?” Dan asked. “I’m leaving the space station tomorrow, going out into space, I don’t think telling me that being scared means I know what is going on is going to reassure me tons.”

“True, I guess you just need a good night’s sleep.” Phil said.

“What counts as a full night’s sleep in a place that has sixteen sunrises and sunsets in a day?” Dan asked.

“Good point.” Phil said and Dan could practically hear him shrug.

“The main problem is that I struggle to sleep at all before an EVA, I just can't stop thinking about it.” Dan said in a resigned tone.

“What you need is a distraction.” Phil declared.

“What kind of distraction?”

“You know on average there are seven new stars born every year in the Milky Way Galaxy?” Phil said. “It’s weird to think of a star being _born_ , isn’t it? Especially knowing what actually happens.”

Dan already knew this but he was aware that Phil was trying to distract him and so he didn’t interrupt.

“I mean it all begins within a molecular cloud and the birth of a star is initiated by a nearby event such as a supernova, and it causes a denseness inside the molecular cloud. Clumps of denseness in fact, and these clumps become stars, but before that can happen they break up further into what we call ‘cores’.” Phil said, his Northern voice was soothing in a way that surprised Dan. “You still with me?”

“I’m listening.” Dan said as an invitation to continue.

“Great, well after that the cores begin to collapse because it contracts and starts to spin due to the effects of gravity, the collapse takes a long time, tens of thousands of years actually, but it gets there eventually. Then we get our protostar, this contracting molecular cloud ends up forming a sort of flattened disk – still spinning by the way – with a hot central bulge.”

“Oh my god, Phil, don’t say hot central bulge.” Dan sniggered.

“Does NASA know one of their astronauts is this immature?” Phil asked with a laugh before returning to his story. “ _Anyways_ it stabilises as a protostar, a very quickly spinning one. So the spinning is getting faster and faster and eventually any new matter that tries to fall on it is just flung away. The rest of the molecular cloud around the protostar ends up flattening into a protoplanetary disk.

“So the _hot central bulge_ is getting hotter and hotter and eventually it becomes hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur and that’s when it starts to shine as a star, and within millions of years there may be actual planets forming around the star.” Phil said. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but it was nice to hear. It was actually kinda relaxing.” Dan admitted.

“Good, that’s what I was aiming for.” Phil said.

“Still, thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Dan. It was fun.” Phil said.

“It’s strange to think that something so beautiful is born in such a violent way.” Dan said.

“Right? Like the only reason that they exist is because of this breakdown and collapse.” Phil said and Dan was so entranced by the fascination in his voice that he could have been listening to Phil talking about paint dry and he would have still been captured.

“So, Phil Lester from the North, you’ve probably read my file and know everything about me, but what about you? I know nothing except your name.” Dan said.

“My name is Philip Lester – Phil – and I’m twenty eight years old, I’ve worked within aeronautics for six years and today, as you know, is my first day working mission control for the mission that you’re on.”

“That’s just what’s in your file, anyone could learn that about you.” Dan whined.

“Yeah, and your file was similar, the only real difference is that this is the second time that you’ve been in space, which is unusual for someone so young, that must mean you're a pretty special guy.”

“Speak to Thomas for five minutes and he’ll assure you that I'm not.” Dan chuckled.

“I’d bet.”

“Alright, so I get your point, now we know the basics about each other’s file, but that’s not what I wanted to know.” Dan said.

“Ah right, so I speak to a guy for twenty minutes and he wants to get deep and personal.” Phil said.

“Right so Phil fact number one; he says something completely innocent but somehow makes it sound like an innuendo.” Dan said.

“Dan fact number one; he can hear a completely innocent sentence and somehow twist it into a suggestive one.” Phil retaliated.

“Touché.” Dan grinned. “Seriously though, you don’t know how good it is to talk to someone.”

“I guess between Silent McGee and the Nasty Pasty you haven’t had many interesting conversations.” Phil said.

“Yeah I made the mistake of asking Thomas to pass me something the other day.” Dan said.

“Do I want to know what he said?”

“I’ll censor it for you, but it was something along the lines of ‘prep school kids thinking that they’re better than everyone else and can just boss people around whenever they wanted to because they’re younger and think they’re more worthy’ and I stopped listening after that.” Dan snickered. “I was quite amused by the fact that he thinks I’m a private school kid.”

“He seems… fun.” Phil said.

“That’s one way to put it.” Dan grinned. “Come on though, give me something, anything.”

“Fine, fine, but you asked for it.” Phil said. “So my cactus died last night.”

“Wait, what?” Dan had never been more confused, he’d asked to get to know the stranger he was talking to and instead he was being told about a plant.

“Yeah, my cactus died. His name was Loki and I was trying so hard to keep this one alive but he’s been going downhill for the past week or so and last night was the night when I decided to ‘officially’ declare him passed.”

“You named your cactus Loki?” Dan asked.

“He needed a strong name, I was hoping he’d survive longer than the others and to prompt him to do so I thought I should give him a strong, respectable name.” Phil defended himself.

“Longer than the others? Phil, are you confessing to being a plant serial killer right now?” Dan asked.

“I don’t mean to do it, I swear I try to keep them alive, they’re my children.” Phil said with genuine sorrow.

“Alright so now we’re getting somewhere, Phil Lester is a plant killer.” Dan said. “Wow, you talk to a guy for twenty minutes and you think you know him then he goes and outs himself as a foliage criminal.”

“You think you're funny, Danny boy, but you’re not.” Phil grumbled.

“Wow, at least walk me home before jumping into the cringy as fuck nicknames.” Dan said.

“I don’t know, I think walking you home would be too much work.”

“You're a nerd.”

“Wow, what an insult.” Phil deadpanned.

“It wasn’t an insult.” Dan said. “I’m a nerd too, we’re all nerds up here, except Thomas, he’s just an ass.”

“If I hadn’t had the pleasure of speaking to Thomas then I might feel sorry for him.” Phil laughed.

“A five minute conversation is enough to laugh anyone a lifetime.” Dan said. “Speaking of conversations, why _did_ you decided to call me?”

“I told you already, I wanted to introduce myself.” Phil said.

“Yeah, and I’m calling bullshit on that, nobody starts a new job and decides to call a bunch of people floating 400 kilometres away to say ‘hi’ and then tries to sooth him by explaining how stars are born.” Dan said.

“Damn you’re perceptive.” Phil said with a sigh. “Alright, I’ll come clean. I was looking through all the logs and trying to catch up with what had been happening before I started here.”

“Right.” Dan mumbled, confused.

“Anyways I noticed that there was only three numbers that were regularly dialled between yourselves and down here, which would make sense if each of you were calling one number each, but then two of the numbers are registered to relations of Thomas and the other is a relation of Mariana.” Phil explained.

“So?”

“So, you aren’t calling anyone or receiving any phone calls.” Phil said and Dan thought he may have been imaging it but there was a hint of sadness in Phil’s voice.

“Yeah?”

“I just didn’t think it was right that you're up there on your own with no one to talk to.” Phil said.

Dan was silent for a moment as he tried to process the new information in his mind.

“Hey, Dan? Are you still there?” Phil asked.

“I’m here, I’m just thinking.” Dan said. “Am I just a charity case?”

“What? No!” the genuine shock in Phil’s voice made Dan believe him straight away.

“Alright, so you just called me because you were worried that I was feeling lonely?” Dan asked.

“Pretty much.” Phil said. “Plus I'm pretty new here and I don’t have many people to talk to either.”

“So we can be lonely together?” Dan suggested with an amused laugh.

“Nothing wrong with that.” Phil grinned. “Well, except for the fact that it’s a bit of an oxymoron.”

“Oooh, look at Mr Proper English over there.” Dan teased.

“Shut up.” Phil said with a laugh. “Anyway, I should let you go and get some sleep, try not to worry so much about tomorrow.”

“I’ll try and, uh, Phil?”

“Hm?”

“Would you call again after the EVA?” Dan asked tentatively.

“Of course, I haven’t rambled about the constellations yet.” Phil said. “You’re going to be wishing that you’d never picked up the phone eventually.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Speak tomorrow, goodnight, Dan.” Phil said.

“Night, Phil.”

The call cut off and Dan was left with a strange feeling. Somehow the short conversation with Phil had left him feeling more relaxed than he had ever since leaving Earth, but at the same time there was a bizarre yearning feeling inside. He was suddenly feeling very homesick for a person he’d never seen.

Dan was happy though, happier than he had been in a while, even when he floated towards his sleeping bag, Thomas’ comment – ‘hey, ET finally finished phoning home’ – didn’t bother him, he just shrugged it off and went to bed.

That night he slept better than he ever had before an EVA, his dreams were filled with strange whispers of a deep voice and stars forming and burning brighter than he’d ever seen before.

 

[Headcannon](https://phandomsub.tumblr.com/post/158795946666/astronautdan-and-missioncontrolphil)


	2. Of Pride and Prats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder: all information was researched from official nasa websites but i am not a professional, there may by aeronautical mistakes or inconsistencies

When Dan woke up the next morning the first thing that he noticed was the feeling of butterflies swooping around in his stomach and the coexisting looming shadow of dread that was hanging over his shoulder making the fluttery butterfly feeling less pleasant and more nausea inducing. A granola bar and a pouch of coffee were shoved into Dan’s hands by Thomas as he passed, Dan turned to say thank you but Thomas was already gone. Dan sighed and stared at the items he had been given in dismay, he would have rather had Phil up there with him. Was that strange? That he would rather have a stranger who he’s only spoken to for twenty minutes as company rather than a person he had shared close quarters with for two months. Maybe it would have been odd if it had been anyone other than Thomas.

Dan downed the granola bar in three bites and washed it away with the lukewarm coffee, once thing Dan was really looking forward to when he got home was a large roast dinner, with gravy and Yorkshire puddings, and creamy mashed potatoes made with butter and milk. He shook his head slightly and tried to clear his mind of all thoughts of food. It wasn’t a good path to go down as he would end up staring out the window at the earth with a watering mouth. He still had seven months to go in the space station, he couldn’t afford to be drooling just yet.

“Mask up, Howell.” The grumbling voice of Thomas said, seconds before an oxygen mask hit Dan in the shoulder.

Screw him, Dan wasn’t going to bother with a ‘thank you’ this time, the asshole could go screw himself. Thomas? More like Thom-ass, Dan snorted to himself before realising that he probably looked insane as he was giggling to himself in solitude, he would have to remember that joke though, for Phil, he’d find that amusing too.

Before applying the masks, the pressure within the cabin had been dropped from 101 kilopascals to 70.3 kilopascals and the percentage of oxygen was increased, Dan donned the mask and felt the slight waft of oxygen hitting his face. He would breathe 100% oxygen for four hours before the trip out of the space station, both he and Thomas would, Mari would be managing things from inside while they ventured out. Mari was lucky, she wouldn’t have to be connected to an oxygen supply for four damn hours.

Dan couldn’t complain too much though as there was a very good reason for the oxygen; it prevented them from developing caisson disease which was better known as the bends or decompression sickness. Not many people realised that astronauts could get decompression sickness as it was more commonly associated with deep sea divers, but nevertheless it was possible and it affected blood flow, caused nerve and tissue damage, and was potentially fatal because there was a chance of a cerebral arterial gas embolism, which was just about as bad as it sounded.

Dan was seriously contemplating radioing Phil while he chilled in the cabin with the oxygen mask; it would give him someone to talk to while he waited for the mission to begin. The four hours dragged by slowly as Dan redid all the equipment checks on his spacesuit and the standard period of exercise while wearing the mask.

As corny and stupid as it sounded, Dan loved his spacesuit, or as it was called the EMU. When Dan had first heard the term ‘EMU’ he had imagined his team and himself flying through space on the backs of giant birds like some knockoff Final Fantasy characters. The truth was less exciting, in reality EMU was an acronym for Extravehicular Mobility Unit and the EMU was so much more than a spacesuit. It was fourteen layers and had eighteen separate items that came together to form one unit that essentially served as a personal spacecraft for the individual wearing it, and Dan thought that it was fascinating.

It was an object that was perceived to be something so simple and yet it was a personal spacecraft designed to sustain human life for a short length of time, it could even be flown for a short distance in the event of an emergency where the astronaut somehow became untethered from the space station. It also was able to supply water, and had backup oxygen in case the astronaut somehow made it through the first lot.

A sudden thought stopped Dan in his tracks and sent a thrill of ice through his veins; what if Phil wasn’t working when the EVA finished? What if he wasn’t there? That was stupid, Dan told himself before the thought could even escalate. Phil had said that he would speak tomorrow before saying goodnight so that implied that he was working and Dan would be able to talk to him. What was concerning to Dan was that he was so desperate to talk to Phil.

Why was he infatuated with a guy that he had never even met? Why was he itching to talk to a person that he’d only had twenty minutes communication with? There was nothing at all that could explain why Dan was addicted to that deep, thickly accented voice. He didn’t even know what the guy looked like.

“Howell, mission control is on the radio, get over here.”

Dan sighed and gripped onto the bar on the wall to propel himself through to the next compartment.

“I’m here.” Dan said for the sake of the people on the other side of the radio, he remained at the side, not bothering to ‘sit’ between Mari and Thomas. In all honesty, it was the least team-like team he had ever been a part of, and that was saying something as Dan had completed many a group project on his own during his time in high school.

“Alright, we just wanted to go over the plan for the EVA.” A voice on the other side said. “As you know this particular EVA is purely for the sake of maintenance and repairs. That means nothing else flies on this venture.”

The words were a warning as a many years ago a scientist had decided to conduct experiments – which was a normal thing to do – while on an EVA that was intended for repairs, but as the scientist had kept it a secret and hadn’t done the standard risk assessments and safety checks things had gone horrifically wrong and had ended up causing a minor explosion that had sent him hurtling away from the space station, completely snapping his tether.

Luckily for the scientist he had also died from the impact of the explosion. It seemed callous to say that but if he had survived then he would have been doomed to a traumatic death as he floated through space just waiting for his oxygen to cut out and then he would have died from asphyxiation.  Fortunately for him, at that time there wouldn’t have been enough oxygen to stay alive for very long. Dan wondered what he would have done in that situation, part of him wanted to think that he would have just taken off his helmet and embraced the inevitable but he knew better. There would always be the niggling thought of ‘what if’, what if someone was going to come to save him? That was enough of a reason for anyone to hold on to the last minute.

“Commander Howell? Are you happy with the plan?”

Dan was jerked back into reality to see his two teammates staring at him with annoyed expressions. How long had he been zoned out for? Thinking about such morbid things. It made sense to think about it though, as it was a very real possibility for Dan. Of course, it wasn’t likely to happen, but everyone always thought that the bad stuff would happen to someone else, never to themselves.

“Yes, sir.” Dan confirmed.

“Good, Howell will take the lead, Johnson will assist with all the repairs, and Armijo will ensure communications relay is up and running throughout the entire mission. This is a standard repairs mission. I don’t want any loss of communication or anyone to deter from their mission. I want this to be as straightforward and as quick as possible.”

“Yes, sir.” All three replied.

“We’ve been working the numbers and believe that the repairs should take approximately four hours, if you have not completed them within five hours then I want you to finish up as safely as possible and return into the space station, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Dan said.

“Now this has been rehearsed back here in the base over and over before you even departed. I'm optimistic about the effectivity and quality of work that you guys will complete, there will be time for you to complete your reports after the EVA and I want them sent to Lester, I will send you all his contact details.”

Lester. That caused Dan to perk up like a dog who had bacon dangling in front of its nose. That was Phil. Phil Lester. Suddenly Dan felt pressure to make sure that this was the best report he’d ever written. He _wanted_ it to catch Phil’s attention.

That was beyond stupid, it was going to be the same as any other report. It would be a monotonous, in depth look at what they had done and whether they could have done anything differently. It wouldn’t entice Phil or draw him in. it would just be another report, so why did it feel so important?

“God damn it, Howell, get your shit together. You’ll get someone killed.” Thomas practically growled at Dan as he made his way passed, alerting him to the fact that they had been dismissed.

It was time to suit up for the EVA, Dan felt the familiar swooping in his stomach, like a hurricane ripping its way through and causing the granola bar to swirl unpleasantly. It was time and Dan had never been more ready, but he also wanted everything to be alright. Every EVA Dan had been on before had been scary, sure, but he had also been unconcerned about the danger. He had considered his friends and family back home and had known that no matter what happened to him, they would be alright in the end.  

Things had changed for Dan, now there was a person who Dan found intriguing. A man who called up and spoke to Dan purely because he was worried about a lonely astronaut. A man who Dan knew nothing about but wanted to know everything about. Dan wanted nothing more than a straightforward mission so that he could return back to the space shuttle and call or radio mission control and tell Phil that he saw the stars. To tell Phil that he saw the stars from last night’s story and thought about their creation as it was resonating through his mind as though someone was whispering the facts in his ear.

Dan repeated Phil’s story to himself in his mind as he put on the EMU suit. It was easy to get lost in the memory of Phil’s voice as Dan got ready for the EVA.

Dan would spend the next hour in his suit breathing pure oxygen before disembarking with Thomas. He wondered whether Thomas felt the same way as he did before an EVA, did he too feel terrified of the venture ahead? Or was he excited? Did he have a family back on earth? A child or multiple children waiting for their father to return? It was difficult to think of Thomas as a fatherly person, especially as he was always so cold and hostile towards Dan.

It was confusing to Dan to think that there was so much he didn’t even know about his teammates. He only had what little information they supplied, which wasn’t much with the relationship that they had.

-

“Commander Howell, Commander Johnson, do you copy?” a crackling voice came through the earpiece Dan was wearing. Dan was surprised that he was able to hear it over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

“Commander Howell copies.” Dan said and was glad to note that his voice didn’t sound as shaky as he felt.

“Commander Johnson copies.” Thomas echoed.

“Flight Engineer Armijo, are all systems ready?”

“This is Flight Engineer Armijo, all systems online and ready for Extravehicular activity.” Mari confirmed.

“Commanders Howell and Johnson enter the quest airlock to prepare for departure.”

Dan and Thomas made their way into the airlock and Dan took a deep, shaky breath and hoped that it wasn’t picked up by the microphone. The door was shut behind him and Dan could hear the locking mechanism kicking in and the sound of the air being drained from the compartment in preparation for the porthole to be opened.

“Are you tethered?”

“Affirmative.” The two astronauts replied.

“Begin departure.”

This was the worst part for Dan, the initial departure from the space station. Whilst being in the space station still held its own risks, it was like a bed of bubble wrap compared to the EVAs. Despite all of this they started inching their way out of the station.

He could hear the ever so faint murmur of voices through the radio, people were speaking in the background, it seemed as though they were explaining something but the voice was too quiet to hear what exactly they were explaining. A deep baritone mumbled a reply and Dan could have sworn that it was Phil.

It was stupid of him not to realise that there was a chance that Phil might be listening and watching the EVA, once he considered it he found that it was slightly comforting. Dan shook his head to himself, groaning at his own idiocy. This was a stranger, a person he had only had one conversation with. He was floating in space on a mission that had the potential to go wrong and end his life and he was thinking about a guy he didn’t even know.

It was beyond ridiculous.

He was acting like an overly hormonal teenager. He was a grown ass man for Pete’s sake, he shouldn’t be having this mental discussion with himself at a time like this.

Dan paused and let himself just float for a moment. The view was always breath taking, there earth was so near and yet so far away. He was able to see the hue of light where the big cities were and Dan just imagined the people that lived in them, rushing about their daily lives and getting ready to sleep for the night, unaware that there were people floating hundreds of miles above them.

The stars were there too, and the longer Dan looked, the more of them appeared. It was beautiful and it filled Dan with a sense of peace. Sure, he was still scared, but how could anybody not relax when surrounded by such ethereal beauty? There was only a handful of the world’s population that could say they had seen this sort of beauty up close.

“Howell, Johnson, make your way to the first thermal control panel.”

Dan gripped his tether and pulled himself back to the space station so that he could latch on and pull himself around to the thermal control panel. The plan for this EVA was to perform maintenance and minor repairs on the two thermal panels, it wasn’t as exciting as the EVAs where they performed scientific experiments to aid their research but Dan didn’t mind. Anything that kept the space station running effectively meant that they were that bit safer.

“We’ve arrived, awaiting confirmation to start checks.” Dan said and he and Thomas hovered by the first thermal panel waiting for further instructions.

“Armijo, are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Howell, Johnson, you can start.”

Dan took some of the tools from the box Thomas had brought out with them and set to work. It was simple work in comparison to some of the stuff they had done and Dan was content to just stick on and get it done. He wondered though, if he had been up here with anyone other than Thomas, would he be chatting away to them? Would there be some playful banter about their life back home, or would it still be the same quiet company?

Dan glanced back up and out towards the stars hoping that if Phil was actually listening then he was also watching. He would appreciate the view from here rather than just constantly staring at the thermal panels, especially after the story he had told to help Dan calm down the night before. It was just a shame that Dan couldn’t stare forever, he had to look back down and focus on the task at hand.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passed as they worked which was why it was a relief when a voice came through the speakers.

“Two hours down, how is progress coming along?”

“The first panel is almost complete, no major issues and all minor problems have been resolved as we’ve been going along.” Dan informed them.

“Thank you Commander Howell. Make contact before moving on to the next thermal panel.”

“Yes, Sir.” Dan and Thomas replied.

The rest of the mission went smoothly, Dan was thankful that no major repairs were needed as that would have meant postponing the next EVA that was intended for research and using it to do even more repairs instead.

It wasn’t until they were about to make their way back inside the space station that things went wrong. They had been outside for nearly five hours, it shouldn’t have taken so long but one of the repairs was a difficult one and they had been on the verge of calling it a major problem that required a separate EVA when they had managed to find the solution.

To be fair, things didn’t even _go wrong_ , it was a shitty mistake that was made which could have been overlooked and would have cost NASA a tiny sum of money but in the end wouldn’t have really mattered.

Thomas had been moving between compartments of the space station and had somehow managed to let go of the tool box during the move. As most people would probably know something that is sent moving at speed through space doesn’t stop, there is no equal or greater force acting against it to slow it down, there is no gravity. It will continue to move unless stopped by other means. Which meant that the velocity of the movement that Thomas had caused when letting go resulted in Dan knowing that the tool box was long gone.

Thomas didn’t appear to get that message, he unhooked himself from his tether and made to go after the box that was already several hundred metres away and still going fast.

“Thomas? What are you doing?” Dan shouted.

“Commander Johnson return to the space station, that is an order.”

“Thomas, what the fuck are you doing?” Dan repeated.

Thomas wasn’t listening, it was too late in the EVA for stupid stunts, and Dan needed to act quick or cut his losses. A tool box was a loss he could cut, a human life was not one, even if it was a life as douchey as Thomas’.

“Oh for fucks sake.” Dan muttered as he disconnected his tether.

“Mission Control this is Commander Howell, I am going to retrieve the dumbass and then we will return to the station.”

“Commander, I would advise against this.”

“Yeah, I'm not keen either but it doesn’t look like he’s coming back of his own accord.” Dan sighed.

“The second you get the warning that half your fuel is gone, I want you to turn around and return regardless of how close you are.”

“Roger that.” Dan said.

Dan was glad that the EMU suits could be powered and flown because that meant that the stupidest idiot in the world, or out of the world, had a chance to live another day. Thomas may have had a head start but Dan was lighter which meant that he was able to catch up before losing too much fuel, the tool box was still too far away.

“Thomas, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dan asked as he grabbed onto the gurney man’s suit.

“Fuck off, Howell.”

“No, are you insane? You’re going to get yourself killed.” Dan argued, fighting back as Thomas tried to push him off. “We’re going back the station, you're not going to die in space because of a tool box. Now stop being a damn idiot.”

“You don’t make the shots, Kid.” Thomas argued, sneering the word ‘kid’ as though it was an insult.

“Actually, I do, I'm in charge of this mission so if I say that you have to leave the tool box, then you fucking leave it, right?”

“Whatever, I was planning on going back anyway, I just thought the excitement might help you grow some chest hair, you look like a ten year old Howell.” Thomas said as he finally broke away from Dan and – to everyone’s relief – made his way back to the station.

“What a dick.” Dan muttered to himself before remembering that mission control were probably listening. “Oh, um, sorry Sir.”

“Just get back to the station, Commander Howell.”

“On my way.”

Thomas was inside the airlock by the time Dan made it back, he didn’t speak or acknowledge Dan’s return so Dan had to speak up.

“We’re in the quest, ready to enter when you are.” Dan said.

“Roger that.” Mari replied.

The outside door was closed and Dan heard the familiar sound of air refiling the chamber.

“You can take off your suits, you're good to enter.” Mari said.

“You handled that well, Howell. This is mission control signing off, I expect your reports within two weeks and I expect a good reason why you pulled that dangerous stunt, Johnson.”

Dan didn’t bother to say anything more to Thomas and instead brushed passed him to enter the station. All he wanted was a coffee and some food. The suits had water built in to drink as they were out in space but water couldn’t help Dan know. Hell, coffee wouldn’t even help but sadly there was no alcohol on board.

Dan wasn’t sure whether he was panicking or angry. His hands were shaking and his heart was racing but he was torn between realising that he could have lost his own life or his teammate’s and knowing that it was Thomas’ fault. Dropping the tool box had been an accident, a stupid accident that could have happened to any of them, but unfortunately it had happened to the proudest man on the station who would risk his life to protect his pride.

-

It wasn’t until later that evening that Dan realised just how much Thomas’ stupidity had affected him.

“Phone.” Mari had said simply to Dan that night, causing him to stop in confusion before realising that Thomas must be giving him the silent treatment.

“Hello?” Dan had said tentatively.

“Hey Dan.” A familiar, chirpy voice replied and just like that the stress that Dan had been carrying with himself all day evaporated into nothing. The knot in his shoulders was gone and there was a weight lifted from him as though Phil was somehow alleviating his worries with a simple greeting.

“Phil, how’s it going?” Dan asked.

“Not bad, I was hoping you’d still be able to talk by the time I called.”

“No offence but where would I go, this isn’t the biggest place, you know?” Dan joked.

“At least now I know that if you ever don’t talk to me then I must have annoyed you.” Phil joked.

“With the company I have? Yeah, no, I don’t think that you have to worry about annoying me anytime soon.” Dan said.

“Rough day?” Phil asked.

“Weren’t you watching and listening?” Dan asked him, he had been sure that it had been Phil’s voice in the background.

“Well, yeah, but I thought you still might want to vent about it.”

“I just don’t understand.” Dan admitted. “He nearly killed both of us.”

“He’s an idiot.” Phil agreed.

“Why would he do something so damn stupid? Didn’t he even stop to consider that there was a chance that he would run out of fuel and float off into space until he died? Or maybe he would run out of oxygen? Or there could have been a malfunction.” Dan ranted. “Anything could have gone wrong, anything could have happened out there but he didn’t care at all. All he cared about was that his pride had been hurt because he dropped a fucking box.”

“Maybe he didn’t notice how far he’d gone?” Phil suggested.

“Nah, I don’t buy that, when I finally managed to stop him he looked back and there was no surprise on his face.” Dan said.

“It just doesn’t make any sense.” Phil said.

“You're telling me.” Dan sighed. “How am I meant to trust him after that?”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much, there are plans being thrown around but it appears as if he’s going to be benched and Armijo is going to go on the next EVA.” Phil said reassuringly.

“I just want a reason.” Dan said. “A decent reason why he decided to act like a dick.”

“I’m afraid the only person who can give you a reason is the idiot himself.” Phil said.

“I know, I know.”

“What you need is a distraction?” Phil said.

“What sort of distraction?” Dan asked.

“How about another ‘Story Time with Phil’?” Phil suggested lightly.

“Anything helps, I guess.”

“Alright, so last time I told you about how stars are created, right? So this time I thought it’s only right to discuss what exactly a star is.”

“You sound like a teacher.” Dan said with a laugh that was bordering on a giggle.

“Well then shhh, show Mr Lester some respect.”

“Oh my fucking god, Phil, you cannot call yourself Mr Lester.” Dan said. “Just please never say that again.”

“Ok, we’ll add that to the list of things I'm not allowed to say ever again.” Phil conceded.

“Wait, there’s a list?”

“Are you going to listen or not?”

“Alright, alright, continue.” Dan said. “Actually, wait.”

“I’m getting mixed messages now.” Phil said.

“You were there throughout the entire EVA?” Dan asked.

“Uh, yeah, I thought that was obvious.” Phil said sounding confused.

“Your shifts are eight hours long.” Dan said.

“So?”

“So the EVA was about five hours long and I’ll bet you were at work at least two hours before that in preparation _and_ it’s been about three hours since we got back.” Dan said.

Phil’s silence was all the confirmation Dan needed.

“Damn it, what are you still doing at work?” Dan asked.

“I stayed behind.” Phil admitted.

“You stayed behind? Why?”

“Because I promised I would talk to you.” Phil said simply as though that was all the reasoning he needed.

“Phil, that’s your time off. You shouldn’t stay behind for me, I’m sure I’d survive.”

“It’s more than that, I wanted to talk to you too.” Phil said. “Now are you going to shut up and listen to my story? I’ll call myself Mr Lester if you don’t be quiet.”

“Oh my god, ok, I’m shutting up now.” Dan said, feeling warmth spread through his body like he was receiving the best hug as he let his body relax entirely and listened to the voice that somehow managed to soothe all of Dan’s worries after only knowing its owner for two days. That was a special voice.

 “Alright so stars have spectral classifications…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading friends, i hope you enjoyed, stay tuned for another chappy next week :) i am so grateful for all the kind comments and kudos on here as well as the lovely asks of encouragement on tumblr! you guys are amazing!!
> 
>  
> 
> you can catch me on tumblr @existentialcatwhiskers


	3. Eta Carinae

A cold atmosphere had infiltrated the space station during the weeks following the semi-successful EVA. Thomas was saying even less than he had before and Mari was still as silent as ever as she refused to take sides, even though Dan didn’t think there were any sides to take really. Thomas had been completely out of line and the fact that he was angry about being called out on it was completely ridiculous. Thomas was now taking every opportunity possible to disagree with Dan, even if it made him look like an idiot, it seemed as though all he cared about was proving the ‘fancy ass privileged kid’ wrong. Dan didn’t bother to argue, it would have just given him more of an incentive against him. Anyway none of the drama really affected Dan because despite the coldness surrounding them, he was happier than ever.

Phil had called or radioed Dan every single day and their conversations were slowly getting longer and longer, which had worried Dan at first because it meant that they were both getting less and less work done. Eventually they had agreed that Phil would set a timer and they would cap their conversations at three hours. Three hours had seemed like a good time to both of them, in fact Dan was slightly concerned that three hours may have been too long, and after all there was only so much they could talk about. However when Phil’s alarm rang on his phone declaring the end to their time talking together with an annoyingly chirpy tune, Dan was disappointed. Surely that hadn’t really been three hours? Dan never wanted Phil to go and judging by the slow, lingering farewells they always exchanged, Phil was never in that much of a rush to leave either.

It had taken Dan over two weeks to realise that there was no way that Phil would have been allowed to sit and talk to him for three hours while on his shift. Nobody would have let that pass, as the time Phil spent talking to him would have meant that he would not have been working which in turn would have caused his co-workers to have to pick up the slack and make up for the time that Phil spent chatting. Dan was still waiting for the right moment to pick Phil up on it, but he knew that he was only putting it off because he didn’t want the phone calls, radio messages or emails to stop.

Dan could tell just from the daily conversations that Phil wasn’t the sort of person who would allow for that to happen, he was a people pleaser, he liked to talk to his co-workers because he was genuinely interested in them and without having ever seen Phil or the interactions between him and other members of mission control, Dan just knew that Phil would be the type of person that others would gravitate towards because just from the way he spoke and described things Dan could feel himself wishing he could move closer.

Dan couldn’t believe that Phil could be so adorable. Every single time he called he would ramble on about something space related for ages. Dan had asked him why he always chose space themed topics to talk about and Phil had told him that it was because Dan was in space. He wanted to talk about topics that were close to Dan, things that he could think of whenever he looked out of the windows of the space station. He didn’t want to talk about things back on earth that would make Dan feel homesick, which Dan appreciated. Phil had worked his way through many different topics within the concept of space up to constellations. Dan was thrilled when Phil didn’t gloss over them and instead decided to go into them in great detail, he would talk about a couple of them each time he called and Dan would listen intently and try to memorise every single word. Not only that but Dan wanted to try and memorise the sound of his voice and the way that his accent would make certain words lilt and others sound thick and almost sensual.

 “I have another song for you!” Phil greeted Dan.

That was another thing that Dan loved about Phil, every time they ended a conversation Dan would log in to his emails to find a new one from Phil with a file containing a new song. That was how they discovered their mutual love for Muse and love for the lesser known alternative and indie artists.

“It’s one that you probably already know, in fact you’ll definitely have heard it but it came on the radio the other day when I was in the staff room and I thought of you.” Phil said.

Dan was slightly grateful that Phil wasn’t able to see the way that his cheeks turned bright red.

“Thanks, Phil, what’s been happening?” Dan said.

“Not much, just a whole lot of auditing, recalculating things that have already been recalculated. Making sure we’ve planned for every outcome possible.” Phil said, his voice sounding tired as he spoke.

“Long day?” Dan asked softly.

“Yeah, I think everything is just starting to catch up with me.” Phil admitted.

“We can cut this short, y’know.” Dan suggested. “You can go home and get some rest, we can always talk another day.”

“I don’t want to.” Phil said. “Honestly, talking to you has been the only thing getting me through today.”

Dan tried not to let one go to his head. Maybe Phil had meant that he was looking forward to the down time, to letting himself relax and chat rather than focusing on work. Still, a part of his mind was hanging on the fact that there was obviously an element of Phil wanting to see him there too. Phil could have gone home to relax, he didn’t need to call Dan for that. So maybe he could let it go to his head, at least a little bit.

“I’ve been looking forward to this conversation too.” Dan admitted.

“Well that’s a relief because I have three hours’ worth of stuff to tell you about.” Phil said.

“Really?” Dan asked with a grin. “That sounds like a lot of stuff has happened to you in the past 24 hours.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Phil agreed. “Have I ever told you that I think I attract crazy people?”

“What?” Dan asked, that was one of the most random questions that Phil had asked him so far.

“It’s true, I think I must have an odour or something, one that only crazy people can pick up on, because they just seem to sniff me out.” Phil said in a voice that implied that he was completely and utterly serious.

“A crazy odour?” Dan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Right, let’s put the crazy odour to the side for a minute, I want some examples.” Dan said. “I just know that there are some very good stories hidden behind a statement like that.”

“Listen, I have more examples than a three hour chat would allow for.” Phil said.

“Well, tell me a few.” Dan insisted.

“Alright, well first there’s the Holy Mother.” Phil said.

“The Holy Mother?” Dan asked. “Phil did you meet a crazy nun somewhere?”

“I was at home!” Phil said and Dan could picture him pouting in his mind. “I was just chilling in my pyjamas watching the new episode of Attack on Titan and there was a knock on the door. It was weird because I had just put down the after ordering pizza and there was no way at all that they would have made it to mine that fast.”

“I'm going to let you continue but I just had to but in to tell you that you need to send me the new season of Attack on Titan.” Dan insisted. “If you don’t then I will find a way back to earth and I will hunt you down.”

“Right, good luck with that, you don’t even know what I look like.” Phil said.

“You attract crazy people apparently, and I think tracking someone down to commit possible homicide because they didn’t send you anime is pretty crazy.” Dan snorted.

“I’ll give you that.” Phil conceded. “Now, can I finish telling you about the Holy Mother?”

Dan made a motion for Phil to continue before remembering that he was wasting his time as Phil couldn’t see any gestures he made. “Go on.” He mumbled out loud for Phil’s benefit.

“Fine, ok, so bear in mind that all of this happened after ten o’clock at night. So there weren’t really any neighbours I could run to for help.” Phil said. “So I looked through the peep hole and there was this old woman staring back at me with crossed eyes and a shawl or a blanket or something wrapped around her head! Anyway I opened the door-“

“You opened the door? Why the fuck would you do that?” Dan asked.

“It would have been rude not to.” Phil explained.

“Oh my god, you Spork, she wouldn’t have known, she’d have probably just assumed that you were either out or sleeping.” Dan laughed.

“Alright, maybe that’s true.” Phil conceded. “I did open the door though and she said ‘hello, may I come in?’ in this really creepy voice, honestly it sent shivers down my spine. It was like the devil was licking my pinkie toe and whispering cottage cheese.”

“Phil, what the fuck?” Dan asked with a horrifying image of Satan licking his own toes in his mind.

“It’s accurate, ok?” Phil said.

“Please tell me you didn’t let the devil-toe-licker in your house?”

“I didn’t. I said ‘no, sorry, I'm busy with my dog’, I don’t even have a dog.” Phil said. “I wish I did.”

“Same.” Dan said. “I want a shibe.”

“A what?”

“A shiba inu.” Dan explained, shocked that Phil didn’t know what he had meant by ‘shibe’, he would have to make sure that he educated his mystery friend on dogs. There was just no excuse.

“Anyway, stop distracting me! She turned round and said ‘I love dogs may I meet your dogs?’ and I pretended to finish my sentence with funeral, as though she had interrupted me in the middle of saying that I was busy planning my dog’s funeral.” Phil said.

“Using a dead dog to get away from a crazy lady? Phil, you’re shameless.” Dan said with a laugh.  

“She could have wanted to sacrifice me, Dan, I was taking every precaution necessary.” Phil said. “She didn’t even care that my dog had just died though, she asked me if I was interested in meeting the holy mother.”

“Wait, so she wasn’t the holy mother?” Dan asked.

“Apparently not.” Phil said. “Maybe she was just a messenger? Then she told me that the holy mother was just upstairs and I could go and meet her right there and then.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Phil, that literally sounds like she was planning to murder you.” Dan said.

“That’s what I thought too, so I said that I couldn’t but maybe next time.”

“You gave her an invitation to come back? Phil, what the hell?”

“I know, I know! I don’t know why I said it, it just slipped out and when I closed the door she was still standing there. I actually half expected her to be there when I left for work.” Phil admitted.

“What would you have done if she was?”

“I probably would have accepted my fate and would go meet the holy mother.” Phil said. “You never know it could have been the pigeon that always seems to get into the building.”

“You think the holy mother is a pigeon?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t really want to know either.” Phil said.

 “Dude,” Dan muttered, “hold on, you said you’ve had more encounters with crazy people?”

“Yeah, tons of them, but they can wait until next time.” Phil said. “It’s your turn to talk, I wanna know what’s been going on up there.”

“Not much really.” Dan admitted. “As you know tomorrows EVA was postponed for a while.”

“You sound disappointed.” Phil said. “I thought the EVAs made you nervous?”

“They do, I mean I love them, but they terrify me so much.” Dan admitted. “I was looking forward to this one though. Like, the last one was fun. They always are but this one was for research, we were finally going to set up our experiments and make some progress but now it’s not going to happen for a while.”

“You really enjoy the research, don’t you?” Phil wondered.

“I love it.” Dan said. “Space is fascinating but learning about how it can affect certain things is even more amazing. Simple things like oxygen and certain pressures can change everything.”

“So what is the subject of the next EVA?” Phil asked, causing Dan to narrow his eyes a little, why was he asking? Mission control knew everything about their mission. It was their job to know everything, it was pretty much in the title.

“We were going to be collecting the samples that had been put out by the last team up here.” Dan said. “There’s heaps of different ones from fabrics that have been designed for EMU suits to various metals and plastics that may someday make up a new space station or space craft.”

“You wouldn’t think that space would have that much of an effect on materials, would you? I mean it’s just a massive vacuum, there’s nothing there.” Phil said.

“It’s not as interesting as the time that we got to set fires but at least it’s an experiment.” Dan said with a pointless shrug.

“Just think, the next time you go up to the space station you might be wearing a brand new, updated EMU suit.” Phil said.

“As long as I'm not the first one.” Dan said. “I hate being the guinea pig.”

“Everyone does, some people just have bad luck.” Phil shrugged.

“My luck tends to suck.” Dan admitted.  

“I don’t know, I think you’ve have good luck so far, I mean if you think about it. You could have been on the fire setting EVA with Thomas.” Phil joked.

“Oh Christ.” Dan muttered. “I’m so, so glad that didn’t happen.”

The fire setting EVA had been about supplying small, controlled amounts of oxygen to flames and testing how they could be most efficiently extinguished. The results were actually not what Dan had expected. The fires actually had required a higher concentration of the material used to extinguish them due to the decreased amount of oxygen. Dan just had images of Thomas using a carbon dioxide extinguisher to jet himself away at an increased speed. There would have been no chance to catch up to him, but then would he have needed to? Would Thomas have managed to catch the tool box and return to the station?

“Me too.” Phil admitted.

That made Dan smile; a tiny little upwards tilt of the lips that slowly crept its way up his face until it was a full on, shit-eating grin that made his dimples appear.

“Hey, I have a question.” Dan said after a few moments of comfortable silence.

“Yeah?” Phil asked.

“Why did you ask me what the next EVA was about when you already knew?” Dan asked.

Dan heard a soft, breathy chuckle through the earpiece.

“I’d rambled too much about my weird person signal and I wanted to hear you talk.” Phil said.

“You wanted to hear me talk?”

“Yeah, you sound like a cute winnie the pooh, your voice is so posh, I love it.” Phil said.

“I’m not posh, I'm articulate.” Dan corrected, trying not to focus on the fact that Phil had said his voice was cute. He probably hadn’t even meant it that way, he was probably referring to winnie the pooh as cute. There was nothing to indicate that Phil thought Dan’s voice was cute and he needed to stop thinking about it. Except for the fact that he had said it and it was all he could think about.

“Sure, articulate.” Phil said in a way that sounded like he didn’t agree but was saying it anyway to placate Dan. “In all seriousness though, I really do like talking to you.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Dan said, “because this is the only communication I get and I’d probably go insane without it.”

“Honestly, same.” Phil said. “Ever since I moved to America I’ve been pretty much on my own, other than talking to people at work.”

“Technically you’re still talking to someone at work when you’re talking to me.” Dan said.

“Nah, you don’t count.” Phil said.

“Oh, is that so?” Dan asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I actually enjoy our conversations, sure, work comes up every now and then but you’d expect that with the jobs we have. Our chats are mainly personal and much more laid back, and I’m finding it the highlight of my day.” Phil said.

“That was something else I wanted to ask you about.” Dan said.

“What?”

“look, I know you said that you like talking to me but I’ve done the maths, you don’t work seven days a week and your shifts aren’t like twenty billion hours long.” Dan said, he hadn’t meant to discuss it then and there but he could hear the tiredness in Phil’s voice and he wanted to at least let him know that he wouldn’t ever hold it against him if he wanted to take a day off from calling.

“Yeah, I know, what’s your point?” Phil asked.

“My point is that it doesn’t seem like you ever have any time to yourself.” Dan said. “Between our long conversations and your job, it just feels like I'm keeping you from having time to yourself. It took me so long to realise that you wouldn’t have been able to call me _while_ you were working and that that meant that you were sacrificing your free time and I was taking up too much time and you couldn’t-”

“Dan, stop.” Phil commanded.

Dan obeyed and fell silent, listening the slow breaths on the other side of the line to soothe himself until Phil called.

“You're my friend, I call you because I want to. I wouldn’t call any of my other friends during work, so why should you be any different. I call you because I want to. End of.” Phil said.

“I’m your friend?” Dan asked.

“Of course, what did you think you were? Honestly, sometimes I wonder about you Daniel.” Phil said with a small chuckle.

“Well, excuse me for trying to give you a night off from my bullshit.” Dan joked. “See if I bother trying that again.”

He felt lighter now that he had brought that up with Phil, he hadn’t been thinking of confronting the matter tonight but then one thing had just led to another and it had slipped out into the open. It was a good thing in the end, Dan had considered Phil as his friend but he hadn’t considered that the feeling was mutual.

“What about a lighter topic?” Phil suggested.

“What do you have in mind?” Dan asked.

“Well, I believe that yesterday I mentioned that I would tell you all about Carina ‘The Keel’.” Phil said and Dan let out a soft chuckle.

“You’re still holding to the whole teach me a constellation a day thing then?” Dan asked fondly.

“I'm a man of my word.” Phil replied simply.

“For that I am super grateful.” Dan said.

“Alright, alright, now shh. You're wasting our time.” Phil said, amusement jumping out of each word.

“My apologies, now proceed.” Dan said.

“Alright, so Carina is one of the more apparent southern constellations and it has the second brightest star in the entire sky – Canopus – in it. The thing is though Canopus is technically more luminous than the brightest star – Sirius – but since it’s further away from us that Sirius is, it appears to be fainter.” Phil said. “Carina also has amazing milky way star fields in it.”

“Yeah?” Dan asked, his mood lifting from the enthusiasm in Phil’s voice.

“Yeah! So the constellation Carina is meant to represent the hull of the ship _Argo_. _Argo_ comes from Greek mythology, it was the ship that Jason and the Argonauts sailed so that they could go and get the Golden Fleece. It’s said that Athena helped to plan and construct the ship and that Hera protected the crew. Some sources believe that the _Argo_ was the first ship to ever sail, and after its successful journey it was consecrated to Poseidon and then it was turned into the constellation that we see today.” Phil explained.

“I didn’t actually know that.” Dan admitted.

“Now you do, it was actually called Argo Navis originally – the constellation that is – but it was then split up into three different constellations; Carina, Puppis, and Vela.” Phil said.

“How do you know all of this stuff?” Dan asked. “I mean, I know the basics but you know everything.”

“I don’t know everything.” Phil laughed. “I just find it fascinating.”

“Well keep going,” Dan encouraged, “I’m finding it pretty fascinating too.”

“Ok then, Carina also contains Eta Carinae which is one of the most amazing, extraordinary stars that there has ever been.” Phil said with more passion than Dan had ever heard anyone use before. “At the moment it is barely visible to the naked eye but back in 1843 it was brighter than Canopus. Since then it has become brighter and faded and brightened again and it’s the only star known to give off ultraviolet laser emission. Scientists actually believe that it’s going to explode as a supernova really soon.”

“A supernova? I would love to see that happening, it sounds pretty vicious, but in a good way.” Dan said.

“Space is violent.” Phil agreed. ”Eta Carinae lives in the Carina Nebula, you know?”

“When I come back to earth, me and you are going somewhere.” Dan said. “Somewhere that is perfect for stargazing, and we’re going to lie on a hill, in the middle of nowhere and you're going to point out all of these constellations and then once you're done, we’re going to sit and create our own.”

“That’s a plan, you can't cancel now, it’s in my diary.” Phil said.

“The undetermined date in set in stone.” Dan laughed.

“How do we create our own constellations?” Phil asked.

“Easily, we pick the brightest stars and create our own patterns and give them intense backstories.” Dan explained. “They can be whatever we want them to be.”

“It’s like looking for shapes in the clouds.” Phil said.

“Except its more exciting and rewarding doing it our way.” Dan said.

“I know the perfect place for us to go.” Phil said surely.

“Really? Care to share?” Dan asked.

“Nope, this one is a secret. Just wait, I will show you when its time.”

“Buzzkill.” Dan mumbled.

“It’ll be worth it nearer the time. Just trust me.” Phil said.

“I do.” Dan replied, and it was true. He did trust Phil wholeheartedly, he trusted a man he’d been speaking to for weeks and had never met. There was no denying it.

Phil chatted away for a little while longer and Dan listened with a soft smile. He had never been more comfortable or content. The only thing that could have improved things would have been if he was sitting next to Phil, or if they were lying side by side on a green hill somewhere under the starry sky laughing and pointing upwards towards the sky and explaining their thoughts to each other.

Later that night as Dan lay in his sleeping bag, floating in his little cabin and listening to the muse song that Phil had sent him, he thought about the stargazing trip he and Phil would be taking. It was exciting to think about, it actually made him more excited to go home. He wanted to see Phil. He wanted to meet Phil.

Just as Dan was about to fall asleep a thought popped into his head. _Was this trip actually a date?_ Stargazing seemed like quite a couple-y thing to do, was that what Phil had meant? Or was this a strictly platonic friendly meeting? Dan wasn’t sure, but he definitely knew which one he would rather it was, and it scared him because he realised that he was hoping that he was going on a date with someone who was a physical question Mark.

Maybe that didn’t matter though, after all a relationship that was based solely on personality was a great thing, it meant they were compatible and had chemistry but there was still the wishing and daydreaming about what Phil looked like.

Dan reckoned he had fantastic eyes, the way he spoke just made Dan _know_ that his eyes must look stunning while he was going on a ramble about something he was passionate about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and for all the amazing comments that you guys have been leaving! They honestly make my day xxx
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr @existentialcatwhiskers


	4. Christmas Crackers

Dan loved being an astronaut, he really did and in fact he wouldn’t change his job for the world, if anyone ever thought to offer him the world that was. It was just that sometimes, being up there in the vast, never ending vacuum of space he felt lost. It sounded stupid, he knew that, and whenever he had tried to explain it to people before, they always told him to relax because mission control knew exactly where he was and they would help to ensure that he got home safely. No amount of explaining that that wasn’t the sort of lost that he meant seemed to get through to that sort of person, it was as though they were contained within their own mind and unwilling to accept that other people had thoughts and feelings that differed from their own.  

It wasn’t that he felt physically lost, it was a different kind of lost where everything seemed pointless and he had started to question whether or not what they were doing actually mattered in the grand scheme of things. What was the point of their silly little experiments? Were they actually making any difference at all? Or were they just conducting these experiments to try and trick themselves and others into thinking that their life was important in that moment and that they were all working towards a greater goal when in fact none of it mattered?

Sometimes Dan wasn’t sure. In those moments when they made a new discovery or breakthrough and everyone was celebrating he would sometimes find himself retreating back into his mind and wondering whether anyone else was sceptical about everything that was going on. Maybe it was all for selfish reasons; Dan knew that he would be long dead before any of the exciting, ground breaking discoveries were made, and even though he loved his work there was a small part of him that felt jealous of the fact that he wouldn’t be there for those moments in the future.

Of course, as Dan was very quickly beginning to see; Phil was different, his phone calls always proved that.

“Happy Christmas eve eve eve eve eve eve eve.” The familiar northern voice declared when Dan answered the call. He would never admit to Phil that he had been hovering around the phone for the last hour as he waited for the call.

“Couldn’t you just say ‘hi Dan, it’s a week until Christmas’?” Dan asked without any bite, he actually loved the little quirks that Phil had, such as counting down to Christmas. Sure it had been annoying on the first few days of December when Dan had had to wait for Phil to recite over twenty ‘eve’s, but now that they were in the single figure it was more amusing than irritating.  

“Come on Dan, have some Christmas spirit.” Phil said chirpily.

“Yes because it’s so easy to feel festive when literally every single day is the same.” Dan said.

“I guess I can see your point there.” Phil said. “Isn’t there some way to make it feel more Christmassy up there?”

“I’m pretty sure Christmassy isn’t a word, but yeah I think that’s the point of having the little Christmas tree and Santa hats.” Dan said.

“Wouldn’t all of the decorations just float off?” Phil asked.

“No, it’s not that sort of tree. It’s only about a foot high and the baubles are all like these little fuzzy pompom things.” Dan explained. “They’re sewn on, so they stay connected to the tree even if the tree goes for a little float.”

“That’s a funny mental image.” Phil said. “I’m just imaging a tree taking itself for a walk because it’s bored.”

“Are you personifying my tree, Phil?” Dan asked.

“I personify everything. My cactus is named Poe, but I think I’m doing something wrong, because he was growing really fast but now he’s just slowly dying.” Phil said with a sigh that would’ve been amusing if not for the genuine sorrow in it.

“Poor Poe.” Dan deadpanned.

“He’s just a young thing,” Phil continued, “he came with me from England.”

“Do you miss it?” Dan asked, changing the subject away from Phil’s inability to keep a plant alive.

“Do you?”

“All the time, I mean sure I love being up here and I love living in America but I miss home.” Dan said.

“Me too, I really miss my family as well.” Phil added. “I usually visited them regularly but now the visits seem to be getting further and further apart and I hate it.”

“There is a lot of distance to take into account and the price of plane tickets is just insane.” Dan agreed.

“Exactly.” Phil agreed. “I do my best to keep in contact with them in every way possible. I mean we text and skype each other all the time which is almost the same as being there in person.”

“Almost, but not quite. Are you going home for Christmas?” Dan asked.

“No, not this year.” Phil said. “I’m working, but I will be going home for the New Year which will be just as good.” Phil said. “My family kind of makes a big deal out of both of them to be honest.”

“Well, make sure you down a drink for me.” Dan said.

“I will, I promise.” Phil assured him. “Hey, Dan? Do you ever feel sad that you're up there during the holidays?”

“Um, not really.” Dan said. “I mean, sometimes I wish I could be out celebrating but at the same time there isn’t much that I'm missing being here. My family aren’t really that close so there aren’t any huge traditions that we like to keep up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean we’d get together for a meal on Christmas day and New Year’s Day but other than that there wasn’t much to it.” Dan said.

“I don’t know, that seems like such a shame to me.” Phil said.

“Maybe, or maybe it’s just a different upbringing.” Dan said with a small shrug, he had never know any different.

“Yeah, you're right.” Phil said, before changing the subject. “Anyway, how’s life up there going?”

“It’s alright, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes.” Dan admitted. “Thomas and Mari aren’t really much for talking. It just gets a bit, ah I don’t know, quiet? Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“Like, the space station is loud. There is always something making a noise whether it’s a bit of machinery whirring away or one of the other crew members doing a job and clanking away at something, but it’s still quiet.”

“Secluded.” Phil said.

“Exactly. There isn’t anywhere to go, anyone to talk to, there are limited things that I can do, some jobs depend on working with Thomas and Mari and as we all know that sucks balls.”

“You’ve got me.” Phil reassured before his voice turned more sombre and serious. “That wasn’t what I meant though, and you know it.”

Dan did know exactly what he had meant, he had previously mentioned to Phil that sometimes he went through periods in which he questioned absolutely everything about life, from his own actions all the way out to society as a whole. Needless to say, when Dan had admitted that sometimes he was so overcome with trying to figure out the point of life that he sometimes forgot to eat and drink, Phil was pretty concerned. He had made a point of asking how Dan was doing every time he called.

“I don’t know.” Dan admitted. “I don’t know how I’m feeling right now, I want to say lost but that doesn’t make much sense really.”

“If that’s how you feel then it makes full sense, you don’t need to be feeling something normal for it to be a valid feeling.” Phil reassured him.

“Sometimes I look down at the earth and it’s such a huge planet and there are so many people on it, and all of those people are too small to see but I know that they’re there.” Dan said. “I _know_ they’re there, but it does beg the question that do they know I’m here, how much can a person’s life matter of nobody knows that they exist?”

“I know you exist.” Phil said.

“Yeah, I exist, but why do I exist?” Dan asked. “What is the point of existence in general? Is to meander through life with a vague hope that somehow one day you’ll do something that matters? Or is it to live life to the fullest? In that case, what would count as living life to the fullest?”

“I don’t know, the meaning of life is a pretty heavy topic and there won't ever be a way of knowing what the meaning is.” Phil said.

“Exactly, there is no way to know what the meaning of life is, so does that mean that there is actually any meaning? Or does it mean that life is actually meaningless and telling ourselves that we all have a purpose is just a way to make ourselves feel better as we stroll towards a slow, pointless death.” Dan pondered. “Sometimes I wonder if anything we do matters,  if you look at the things we study to get us up here in space, it’s all so small and unimportant compared to the formation of stars and supernovae, nothing is as astronomical or as powerful as some of the things up here.”

“You're worried that you don’t matter?”

“I’m worried that none of us matter.” Dan corrected. “At the end of the day we’re all working towards discovering something new and amazing but the truth is that everything that we put into trying to learn this new amazing thing doesn’t matter. The chances are that we’ll either be dead or retired by the time the best discoveries are made.”

“I don’t know, someone has to be there, and that someone might just be you.” Phil said.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be me.” Dan said. “I feel so small compared to everything that’s going on in this world.”

“Dan, even if you’re right and those huge discoveries you're dreaming of are decades away, what we’re doing – what you're doing – just now is important. You don’t have to be astronomical to matter.” Phil said.

“You don’t have to be astronomical to matter? That sounds like something from a motivational poster.” Dan said softly.

“It’s true though, everything you do matters.” Phil said. “I will always remind you of that whenever you need me to.”

“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.” Dan said, before realising what he had said could be taken another way and internally freaking out.

“Don’t be daft, it’s me who doesn’t deserve to be talking to you.” Phil said.

“Why don’t we compromise and say that we both deserve to talk to each other?” Dan asked.

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Phil agreed.

“Hey, Phil?” Dan said after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Hmm?”

“I know I’ve said this a billion times, but thanks.” Dan said.

“Why are you thanking me this time?” Phil asked in confusion.

“For listening.” Dan said simply. “Most of the time people tell me to get out of my head and to stop being selfish because there’s more to live than what’s going on in my own little bubble.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish.” Phil said.

“I do.” Dan argued, it was true, he was selfish. Everything he did was for himself and there wasn’t a lot that he went out of his way to do for others.

“Well, I think that your opinion of yourself is a bit skewed.” Phil countered.

“I think that I can't wait to finally meet you in person.” Dan said.

“It’s not long, a few more months. Just you wait, this New Year will be the year of Dan and Phil.” Phil said reassuringly.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, we have that stargazing date planned and I’m going to take you to see a Muse concert, even though we’ve both seen Muse live, we’ve never seen them live together and that has to be changed as soon as possible.” Phil said in a longwinded ramble, oblivious to the fact that all Dan had really heard was him referring to their stargazing plans as a date. “Also you mentioned last week that you really want to visit Japan and I have friends who live in Tokyo who I have still to visit, so we should definitely take a visit to Tokyo.”

“That sounds amazing.” Dan said quietly, imagining his dream holiday with the person who had grown to mean so much to him over the past few months. “Hey, Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think that maybe, instead of a song, tonight you could send me a picture of yourself?” Dan felt guilty for asking, telling himself that if Phil had wanted Dan to know what he looked like then he would’ve sent a picture already, but then if he was making plans for them when Dan got back to earth then he couldn’t be that against the idea, could he?

“Of course. I can't believe we haven’t done that yet.” Phil said. “I keep forgetting that I can see you through the cameras when they’re turned on and that I’ve seen your picture a lot down here, but you know nothing about what I look like.”

“It still freaks me out that you guys can see us when the cameras are on.” Dan said.

“That’s kind of the point cameras.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” Dan said with a laugh and with that all attention was removed from the topic of Phil sending a photograph.

It wasn’t until Dan lay in bed that night listening to the newest song that Phil had sent him that he realised that he hadn’t received the promised photo.

“Merry Christmas!”

Dan actually winced as the words blasted through the speaker and pierced his eardrums, it was needless to say that being stuck in America and working through Christmas wasn’t dampening Phil’s spirit in any way.

“Merry Christmas, Phil.” Dan replied softly.

“It’s so strange being here on Christmas Day, there isn’t even any snow.” Phil whined.

“I don’t have any snow here either.” Dan joked. “Although, if I look down I can see where there is snow in some countries on earth.”

“It must be so surreal to see that in person.” Phil said. “I mean, sure we get to see the photos but to actually be up there and experiencing that, it would be amazing.”

“Do you think it’s something that you would ever do?” Dan asked.

“Probably not, the thought terrifies me.” Phil admitted.

“Really? I had no idea, you’re always so good at getting me to calm down whenever I’m freaking out about being up here.”

“That’s because I’m down here, and I can see all the statistics and I know that you’re completely safe.” Phil said. “Did you know that they actually are scheduling me to be on shift whenever you have an EVA planned?”

“Really? Why’s that?” Dan asked.

“They said it was for numbers but one of the guys I’ve become friends with said that it was actually because we seem calmer whenever we’re working the EVAs together.” Phil said with a nervous laugh.

“That’s true though,” Dan said, “somehow instructions seem a lot safer and more reliable when you’re the one giving them.”

“It’s strange isn’t it? Because I know that I feel more relaxed when I’m the one on shift down here, even though I know that there isn’t a ton I can do to help you.” Phil said.

There was a hint of sadness in Phil’s voice that somehow managed to travel 400km and tug at Dan’s heartstrings.

“How are you really, Phil?” Dan asked. “I know how much you love your family and how hard it must be for you to be away from them during the holidays.”

“I think I would have been alright, but my brother proposed to his girlfriend last night and I know a Christmas Eve proposal is just cheesy but I’m so happy for them both and I wish I could have told them that in person, she’s like a sister to me.” Phil said.

“Shit, I’m sorry Phil.” Dan said. “Instead you're stuck here talking to me.”

“No, I’m stuck here working.” Phil corrected.

“Oh, yeah.” Dan said and it felt as though Phil’s words had formed a physical spike that impaled him through the chest and left him feeling lost for breath and for words.

“Wait, no, not like that.” Phil said quickly. “What I meant was that I don’t want you to blame yourself, I’m here because I’m working but I'm talking to you because I want to and to be honest it’s the only thing that is helping me to deal with the fact that I'm not at home.”

“Growing up sucks.” Dan mumbled.

“Growing up does suck.” Phil agreed. “I wish I could go back and tell fifteen year old Phil to stop being so eager to grow up and leave home.”

“There’s a lot I wish I could tell my younger self.” Dan agreed.

“It also sucks that time travel will not be invented in our time.” Phil said.

“Unless it will be but you’re not allowed to interact with people in your past to prevent creating a massive shitstorm.” Dan reasoned.

“Yeah, but there’d always be _someone_ who would break the rules, so surely we would have heard about it in some way by now.” Phil said.

“I don’t know, our minds may try and form a completely reasonable explanation for the abnormality.” Dan said. “Like when you hear a strange noise in the middle of the night and just tell yourself that it was nothing, or that maybe you’d left a window open and the wind had blown in and caused something to fall.”

“I think if I was telling myself I’d left a window open then I’d be more concerned about robbers than a ghost.” Phil said.

“That’s true but I think the supernatural – whilst I don’t believe in it at all – is so much more terrifying than an actual physical person.” Dan explained.

“That is the weirdest logic I have ever heard.” Phil said. “How can you be scared of something that you don’t believe in?”

“Excuse me, have you ever seen _The Ring?_ That little girl-”

“Samara.”

“Right, Samara, is terrifying.” Dan said. “I would take a physical enemy any day over her.”

“She’s not real.” Phil said with a laugh.

“I literally do not care how real she is, she’s fucking terrifying.” Dan said stubbornly.

“You’re an idiot.” Phil said and something about the way he said it made a smile form on Dan’s face and he felt lighter.

“I know.”

“Oh hey, wait a second, I’ll be right back.” Phil blurted out suddenly.

The was a scuffle and a thump which Dan thought sounded a lot like a person falling over but the rummaging noises continued so Dan reckoned that if Phil had fallen over then he couldn’t be hurt too badly because he was still searching for whatever it was he had remembered.

“I'm back.”

“All limbs intact?” Dan asked.

“Just about.” Phil joked. “I almost forgot that I brought Christmas crackers for today.”

“Uh, Phil? I know we’ve been talking a lot and become closer but you do realise that I'm too far away to pull a cracker with you?” Dan said.

“Oh yeah, you’re hilarious, I get it.” Phil said sardonically. “I’ll pull them and tell you the jokes.”

“Shitty cracker jokes are the highlight of Christmas, even I can admit that.” Dan said.

There was a loud crack that made Dan jump.

“Jesus fucking Christ, give me a warning next time.” Dan said.

“Sorry,” Phil said in a voice that implied that he was anything but sorry, “hey, the hat is yellow, that sucks I want a purple hat.”

“What prize did we get?” Dan asked.

“One of the film fish things, you know the ones that can supposedly tell you how you're feeling?” Phil said.

“They’re my favourite.” Dan said. “Although I have a really bad habit of getting dead ones. Do you think that means that the fish is dead or that you yourself are emotionally dead?”

“I don’t think I want to know, I’ve never really considered it that way, I always took it to mean that the fish was dead.” Phil said. “Anyways, getting off the topic of dead fish, are you ready to hear this joke?”

“Shoot.”

“How does Jack Frost get to work?”

“Oh I’m already cringing.” Dan mumbled. “Go on then, how?”

“By ‘icicle.” Phil said and he actually let out a small laugh.

“I can't believe that you actually laughed at that, I'm ashamed.” Dan said.

 “It was amusing.” Phil protested.

“It was awful, it was one of the worst ones I’ve ever heard.” Dan corrected him.

“You just don’t appreciate quality jokes when you hear them.” Phil said.

“Right I’m sure that’s exactly what they are; quality.” Dan said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

“Do you want more jokes?” Phil asked.

“Do you want an answer?”

Phil answered Dan’s return question with a loud crack of another Christmas cracker.

“The hat’s red this time.”

“I always liked to have the red hat.” Dan said.

“I’ll keep this for you for when you get back then.” Phil said. “Also there is a plastic moustache, you can have that too.”

“Wow, thank you, I can feel how heartfelt that gift is from here.”

“Ok, ok, a moment of silence for this next joke.” Phil said and Dan could have killed him because the little shit actually paused to take a moment of silence. “What did Santa’s helpers learn at school?”

“Oh I’m bursting with anticipation.” Dan said dryly.

“The elf-abet.” Phil declared.

“I hate you.”

“I hate you, too.” Phil said. “One more?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to get one more no matter how I answer that question.” Dan said with a chuckle.

“That’s true, the only way to stop me would be to hang up.”

“I won't be doing that.” Dan said. “It’s Christmas, I can't be rude to you on Christmas.”

“Uh huh, I’m sure that’s the only reason.” Phil said and with that there was a third loud bang as another cracker was pulled. “Finally! I got my purple hat.”

“A true Christmas miracle.” Dan said with a pointless roll of his eyes. “What’s the prize?”

“A little plastic dice that’s coloured silver to look like its metal.” Phil said.

“Wow, no expense spared on these crackers.” Dan laughed.

“Right, shh, joke time.” Phil said. “If athletes get athletes foot, what do astronauts get?”

“Did you seriously get this joke?”

“No, this was one I prepared beforehand because the one I just got was too cringey even for me.” Phil said. “Are you gonna guess?”

“I honestly have no idea? Just give it to me.”

“Missile toe.”

“That was physically painful.” Dan said. “I can actually feel the ten years that that joke took off my life.”

“You’re so hard to please when it comes to jokes.” Phil said.

“Jokes are an art form and I have high standards.” Dan said in a faux snooty voice.

“Sure, we’ll you might have to check your standards because I am now compiling a list of the worst jokes I can find and when you get back I’ll tell them all to you.”

“And in other news I am never coming back to earth.”

“Rude.”

“I’m lying, I can't wait to get back and finally meet you in person.” Dan said, he knew that Phil would have known that he was just joking, but somehow he couldn’t let that be said without correcting himself no matter how needless the correction was.

“I can't believe you're home soon.” Phil said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment forever.”

“Me too, sure I love being up here and I would love it more if I had some better company, but I am dying to meet you in person.” Dan said.

“You’ll be glad to know that I have the location for our stargazing expedition picked out.” Phil said.

“Oh really? Do I get any hints?” Dan asked, trying to hide the excited tremor in his voice unsuccessfully.

“Nope, it’s a complete surprise, but I will tell you that you’re going to need your passport.” Phil said.

“Seriously? That’s just opened up the possibilities rather than narrowing them down.” Dan complained.

“Exactly, I can't let you work it out, it’ll ruin the surprise.” Phil said.

“You do realise that if you need to get me on a plane then I'm going to find out where we’re going as soon as we get to the airport.” Dan said.

“Damn, I’ll figure out a way to get around that by the time we go.” Phil promised.

“Sure you will.” Dan said placating him.

“Just wait, I have a flight home soon so I can keep an eye and ear out for any mentions of location and work out how I would block them from a person.” Phil said.

“When is your flight?” Dan asked, realising that he was going to end up missing a few days of contact with Phil.

“I’m going home on the 30th and I’ll be coming back up here on the 2nd.” Phil said. “So it’s not a long time away but it’ll be a good break.”

“Tell your brother and his partner that I said congratulations.” Dan said.

“I will, he’ll freak out when I do though.” Phil said.

“What? Why?” Dan asked.

“Well, when I told him I was working for NASA he practically went insane and geeked out on me, and when I told him that I was friends with an astronaut he begged practically begged to talk to you.” Phil admitted.

“I hope you told him that I’m just a giant nerd, and I'm nothing special.” Dan said with a snort.

“Actually I told him that he’d meet you in person someday and that you were one of the most interesting people I know.” Phil said.

Dan paused for a second to process that.

“Really?”

“Of course, you are a really kind and interesting person.”

“No, not that, I appreciate it but I meant do you really want me to meet your brother one day?” Dan asked.

“If you want to, I want you to meet my whole family.” Phil said.

“I think that would be amazing.” Dan said.

“Good, I’ll make it a surprise for my brother then, he’ll absolutely freak out.”

“You don’t understand how weird that would be,” Dan said with a slight shake of his head, “I'm not someone to freak out about. I'm just a giant dork.”

“It doesn’t matter what I say to him, he’s going to be staring at you in awe for the whole visit.” Phil said. “He was a space kid, but he went down the route of management and now owns several stores throughout the UK.”

“He sounds like a good guy.” Dan said.

“He is, not that you’ll think that when he’s finished questioning you.”

“Come on Phil, you know that I could quite happily talk about my job for hours on end.” Dan said with a laugh.

“I know, but I would still recommend caution when getting him caught up in a conversation.” Phil said.

They talked for a little while longer, ending up surpassing their three hour limit but neither of them mentioned it. It was Christmas after all, and if they were ever going to spend a little bit of extra time talking then this was the perfect day to do it.

Eventually, as with everything in life, all good things have to come to an end and Dan found himself saying goodbye to Phil before he was ready to. It wasn’t all bad though, as Dan quickly discovered when he logged into his emails later that night.

He had been expecting to find another cheesy Christmas tune like he had been getting all month but instead he found that he had been sent a .jpeg file. His curiosity was overwhelming him and he opened the file right there and then.

It was a scanned Polaroid photo of who Dan assumed was Phil, he had black hair that was swept to the side in an ‘emo’ fringe and Dan wondered if it felt as soft as it looked. Dan let out a soft, breathy laugh as he noticed the purple Christmas hat nestled on top of Phil’s head.

It was his eyes that really struck Dan though, they were stunning. An insane mixture of blue, green and yellow that somehow managed to captivate Dan and left him itching to see them in person.

Along the bottom ‘Merry Christmas Dan xxx’ was scrawled in surprisingly neat handwriting, it put Dan’s to shame.

It was such a sweet, heartfelt gesture and Dan wanted nothing more than to have the original Polaroid in his hands. Was that weird? That he wanted the picture, just so he could hold it and know that it was real?

Scrap that, he wanted Phil, he wanted to be able and reach out and touch him and know that he was real and that he was there. It wasn’t long though, he tried to remember that, soon he would be on his way home and he would meet Phil and they would finally go on that _date_.

As Dan fell asleep that night his dreams were no longer filled with a mysterious, ever changing figure in the place of Phil. No, now they were filled with real Phil, and Dan had never thought that it would be possible to fall for someone in your sleep but somehow he was managing to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading loves! as you can probably see i am no longer existentialcatwhiskers i am now asteroidphil both here and on tumblr 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed, we should be back to out weekly uploads from now on ;) xx


	5. Happy New Year, Dan

Phil had forgotten just how cold the UK really was. It hadn’t been so bad when he had actually lived there because it was all he had really known and he had been used to the cold, miserable weather and the unpredictable bouts of stormy showers where were nearly always followed by a cold, harsh sun. So as Phil left the airport, dragging his suitcase along beside him, he found himself shivering and wishing that he had brought a thicker jacket with him.

There was a thin layer of snow coating the ground and a few workers in high visibility vests were shovelling grit onto the main walkways as Phil waited for his taxi to arrive. One thing that amused Phil about the UK was how the slightest bit of snow would completely throw everyone. As soon as a single snowflake hit the ground there was a pandemonium; trains were cancelled, traffic was tailed back for miles, people refused to go to work. It was insane, that being said, Phil had loved it when he was a child because it meant that he had had more snow days and didn’t have to go to school, however as an adult it was just an inconvenience.

“Taxi for Lester?” A man called through an ever so slightly opened car window, obviously unwilling to let the cold air pour into his toasty cab.

“That’s me,” Phil said and he dragged his luggage over to the car and put it into the boot. Usually taxi drivers insisted on doing that for their passengers but it seemed that this particular driver was allergic to the cold weather.

“Alrighty then, where we headed?” The driver asked once Phil was seated and had clipped in his seatbelt.

Phil recited the address that was practically ingrained in his mind.

“Off to see a special someone for the holidays?” He asked. “I used to always travel to my Lisa’s house to surprise her on special occasions before we moved in together.”

“Ah, no, I’m going to see my family.” Phil said but as he said the words his mind drifted and he could almost imagine himself heading to see Dan. It was an enticing thought. He would knock on the door and Dan would open it and Phil would pull him in a tight hug just to prove to himself that he was actually real and safe.

“You do have a special someone though, I can tell.” The driver said. “The look on your face when I said that just screamed young love.”

“Maybe, I don’t really know to be honest with you.” Phil said. “It’s pretty complicated at the moment.”

“Relationships always are.”

“The thing is, it’s not actually a relationship, we’re just friends.” Phil corrected him.

“Do you want a relationship with this person?” He asked.

“I don’t actually know, maybe. I mean we have a lot in common but we work together so it could get a bit complicated.” Phil explained.

That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that Dan was actually an astronaut floating in space currently.

“And do you think that maybe this person could like you as more than a friend?” The taxi driver asked him.

“Sometimes I think they really could.” Phil admitted. “It’s hard to say though, because they’re quite lonely and I don’t know whether they talk to me because they want to or because they don't have anyone else.”

“Do they say that they enjoy talking to you?”

“Well, yeah they do.” Phil said, unsure where the guy was heading with his line of questioning.

“So why not just meet up with the person and ask them what they want?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Phil said, “there’s a distance element to it, they’re very far away right now.”

“Like in Australia?”

“Further.” Phil muttered, it wasn’t like he could just hop on a plane and go visit Dan where he was. To be honest Phil wouldn’t want to visit Dan, flying up into space would be too terrifying and he would feel too vulnerable.

“Is that possible?”

“Believe it or not, it is.” Phil said wryly.

“So when will you get to meet them?” The driver asked curiously.

“A few months’ time, I’m hoping to be there when they land but it’ll mean I have to pull a few strings.” Phil said. He wasn’t technically working the shift in which Dan would land back on Earth and it was difficult to get a swap because everybody wanted to be there for that moment, so Phil was struggling to get his foot through that door.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you here because I danced around my Lisa for too long and I wasted so much time that we could have had together.” The driver said. “She passed last year, cervical cancer, it was just caught too late and every day I wish that I hadn’t been so worried about confessing my feelings for her.”

“I’m sorry.” Phil said quietly.

“Why? It’s not your fault and I’m not telling you for sympathy. I'm telling you because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as I did, go meet this person, admit your feelings and deal with the consequences.”

A silence fell over them, neither had anything left to add to the conversation and Phil had more than enough to think about for the time being.

Could it be that Phil was just pushing his own insecurities onto Dan? Maybe he would return his feelings and they would be happy together, or maybe he would shoot Phil down in flames. Either way, wasn’t it better to know? Rather than to continue to live in this miserable state of confusion which literally made Phil want to bang his head against the wall at least three times per day.

 It did cause him to think of a future in which he and Dan were happy together. He could picture himself waking up beside Dan in ten years’ time and nothing was more enticing or more terrifying than the fact that he could actually see himself having a future with a man who had never met him.

“What number was it again?” the driver asked as they approached Phil’s parents’ street. Phil replied absentmindedly, his thoughts focussed on the man who he had only seen in photos and videos from the ISS.

The taxi driver wound the window down after Phil had left and called after him to get his attention, Phil paused and turned back to see what he wanted, automatically checking his pockets for his phone and wallet to make sure that he hadn’t left them  in the cab by accident.

“Yeah?” Phil asked in confusion once he had confirmed that everything was where it should be.

“Just tell him how you feel, if he looks half as lovey dovey as you do then you’ll be fine.”

With that the window was back up and Phil was left staring at the boot of the car as it drove away, deep in thought. He could understand how the guy had guessed that Phil was pining after a man, they had both been pretty careful not to mention any pronouns.

Did Phil really look ‘lovey dovey’, was it really so obvious that he was pining after someone? Was pining even the right word? Pining was an actual physical or mental decline because of a broken heart that could have been caused by a breakup or perhaps unrequited love. Could Phil really say that he was in love if he’d never met Dan?

No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t even pretend that his feelings were that deep, not yet, it was merely a crush. It seemed so childish to say that he had a crush, but that was the truth, Phil had a crush.

“You going to stand out there until the New Year rolls in? I mean, I’ll support you in your decision but I don’t think mum will be very happy if she has to serve you your New Year’s dinner in the front garden.” Phil turned towards the sound of his older brother’s voice, ever the joker, he had a wide grin on his face.

“Tempting, but it’s a bit cold.” Phil said.

“They guy hasn’t even been in America for a year and all of a sudden good old England is just too cold for him.” Martyn said.

“Are you talking to yourself, I thought Mum had told you to stop that, does it not creep Cornelia out?” Phil asked as he pulled his brother in for a hug.

“Shut up,” Martyn said, but the hug was returned tightly.

Phil had missed his brother more than he could put into words, it was nice to be home again. Even if it was only for a few days.

“She wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ when I proposed if she had been creeped out by my tendency to talk to myself on occasion.” Martyn said and Phil had to agree that he had a point.

“Congratulations, by the way.” Phil said. “I know I phoned but I really just wanted to say it in person.”

“You sent a card too,” Martyn reminded him, “you don’t have to congratulate us every day up until the wedding you know.”

“Maybe I will.” Phil said.

“Are you guys going to stand in the doorway all day, or are you actually coming in?” A voice called and Phil took that as his cue to brush passed his brother and head deeper into the warmth of the house.

Everyone had congregating in the kitchen, perched on stools around the kitchen island. The smell of coffee permeated the air causing Phil to crave it, thankfully his wishes were answered relatively quickly as a cup was placed in his hands as his mum pecked him on the cheek.

“Here’s the worker.” His mum declared proudly, that was something she had done ever since he had been sixteen and had gotten his first ever job. Whenever he would get home after a shift she would say ‘here’s the worker’ and at that young age it had made him feel so important; he would walk around the house with his chin in the air and his chest puffed out as much as it would go.

His family still teased him about that to this day and to be honest he couldn’t exactly blame them because he had been unbelievably embarrassing.

“Thanks.” Phil said as he took a sip of his coffee.

“How was your flight?” His mum asked, ushering him onto a stool.

“Long, the changes on the way didn’t help either, but they saved me £250 so I shouldn’t really complain about them.” Phil said. “Plus there were some good movies on.”

“It’s a shame you’re not staying for longer.” Cornelia said. “It’s good to have everyone together again.”

“I wanted to but there’s a lot going on at work, I can't be away for too long.” Phil said.

“You get holiday leave though, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, it’s more that I don’t want to be away for too long, to be honest.” Phil admitted. “Whenever I take holidays in the middle of missions, I find it difficult to catch up on what I’ve missed.”

That wasn’t mentioning the fact that he wanted to keep talking to Dan. It was technically possible for Dan to call him while he was in the UK but there was the tiny issue of the fact that neither of them had each other’s personal phone numbers, and time zones got in the way a little, and also it would be expensive to make a call off the earth.

Plus, Phil may have been trying to prove to himself that he could go a few days without talking to Dan. It wasn’t like he _needed_ to talk to him every single day. Except now that he was finally beginning to work things out and accept that he may have a crush on his friend, he wanted to talk to him every day, he needed to talk to him and try and pick up on whether there was any indication of his feelings being returned.

“That makes sense, I guess.” Cornelia said.

“Come on then, Phil, tell us more about NASA.” Martyn said eagerly, leaning forward in anticipation.

“There’s not much to tell at the moment, everything is running smoothly.” Phil said. “It’s just a lot of calculations and we’re initiating preparations for the team’s return to Earth.”

“Are you going to be there when they land?”

“I’m trying my best to be there but I just don’t know yet.” Phil said. “Oh, by the way, Dan said congratulations on the engagement.”

“Dan as in _Dan?”_ Martyn asked his eyes widening almost comically. “Dan the astronaut?”

“Yeah, I don’t know anyone else named Dan.” Phil said.

“Wait, an actual, real life astronaut congratulated me on my engagement?” Martyn asked again, excitement seeping into his voice.

“Our engagement, sweetie.” Cornelia said rolling her eyes.

“That’s what I said,” Martyn lied, “I can't believe an astronaut knows I exist.”

“You make it sound like he’s some sort of celebrity.” Phil said with a laugh, he could not imagine Dan even wanting to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people. “Dan’s nothing like that to be honest. He’s really kind and down to earth.”

“Down to earth?” Martyn repeated. “Nice one.”

“No seriously, all jokes aside, he’s really easy to talk to, he’s just like another person.” Phil said.

Somehow that felt like a lie to him, it wasn’t true at all, Dan was nothing like just another person. He was completely unique and special in a way that he didn’t seem to even realise. It was endearingly frustrating how Dan viewed himself as just an average person and it made Phil want to travel all the way to space just so he could grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he understood that he was special and important to Phil.  

“You mentioned that he was struggling a bit in your last phone call.” Phil’s mum said with a slight frown of confusion.

“Yeah, he doesn’t have the greatest company up there.” Phil said. “It’s a small mission so there is only him and two others and neither of them are really willing to hold much of a conversation so he’s pretty lonely, plus he’s stuck in a small space with them.”

“Wait, the International Space Station is gigantic, I’ve seen pictures of it on google.” Martyn said.

“Yeah but the United States doesn’t own the entire thing, it’s shared, hence it being called the _International_ Space Station. Also it doesn’t matter how big it is, when you're stuck there with people who act like they resent you it would probably end up feeling tiny.” Phil said.

“I guess that’s true.” Martyn agreed.

“When is he home?” Cornelia asked.

“A few months yet, he has another EVA coming up – that’s where they leave the space station and walk about in space,” Phil elaborated for the benefit of his family, “so he’s got that to look forward to.”

“He _likes_ those?” Phil’s mum asked. “They sound a bit dangerous.”

“They’re fascinating, we watch them via cameras back at the office but it’s probably nothing compared to what it’s like to actually be up there,” Phil said, “but it’s amazing to see nonetheless.”

“But the danger?” His mum repeated.

“Yeah, it’s risky, it always will be but we make sure we’ve accounted for all possible mishaps and the suits that they use to go on space walks in have emergency supplies of oxygen and fuel so that they can essentially drive the suits short distances in case they become untethered from the space station.” Phil explained.

“Is that something that happens often?”

“No, no way, it’s rare and if it does happen it’s usually caused by equipment malfunction or the astronaut intentionally untethering themselves.” Phil said.

“Why would they intentionally untether themselves?” Martyn asked.

“Dan did it on the last EVA.” Phil said. “Thomas, one of the other astronauts, did something really idiotic and Dan had to untether himself and bring him back to the space station.”

What Phil didn’t mention was how he had been on the edge of his seat with worry the entire time Dan was untethered from the station or how he had silently been cursing out the ass that was also known as Thomas for doing something so recklessly stupid.

“That must have been terrifying for him.” Phil’s mum murmured quietly.

Phil hadn’t considered that, he had been too focused on his anger at Thomas for pulling such a dangerous stunt. Dan had looked shaken afterwards but he had been too busy ranting about Thomas that neither of them had taken the time to properly discuss how he was feeling after the ordeal.

Maybe that was something that they should discuss at some point

Phil was greatly enjoying his time with his family, even if he knew it was going to end fairly quickly, he tried not to focus on that though as they huddled together in the backyard all wrapped up in coats, scarves and woollen hats.

Phil’s breath swirled through the air in front of him giving him a visual reminder of the below zero temperature as if the numbness in the tips of his fingers and toes wasn’t enough to indicate that it was freezing outside.

“We came out too early.” Phil could hear his dad complaining quietly to his mum somewhere behind him.

“Hush, it’s once a year, there’s no such thing as too early.” His heard his mum mutter back quietly.

Phil secretly agreed with his dad; they’d been hovering in the backyard for the past ten minutes as they waited to count the New Year in. he shifted between his feet and rubbed his hands together to try and fight off the biting wind but it was a relatively pointless effort.

“Right guys, get ready, it’s almost time to count down.” Phil’s mum announced excitedly.

They gathered even closer and started counting down for the last minute, all eager to see in the New Year.

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… Happy New Year!”

Fireworks erupted all around them and Phil could hear the cheers of multiple families and groups of friends as they began their celebrations.

“Another year.” Phil said quietly.

“It’s going to fly by.” Martyn said.

“I can actually tell people that I’m getting married this year.” Cornelia said with a laugh.

They stood in the cold for a little while longer and watched the fireworks before making the decision to head inside to warm up and have a celebratory drink.

“I’ll be in in a moment.” Phil said, despite the frigid weather he wanted to spend a few moments alone just to think for a while.

His family didn’t question his request and left him in peace. He waited a few moments to make sure that his family were definitely inside and he wandered down the yard a little bit and further away from the house to ensure that they wouldn’t overhear him.

It was lucky that there were no clouds in the sky as Phil had a clear view of all the stars and could practically see Dan from where he was. Alright, he couldn’t actually see the space station but if it had been in the right place on its rotations then Phil would have been able to see it. It was like an exceptionally bright star.

“Hey, Dan,” Phil murmured quietly, “I know you can’t hear me right now, but I just wanted to, oh god this feels stupid.”

Phil took a breath and wiped his hands across his face, he was cold and tired and he missed Dan, he didn’t need to feel so stupid though. This was just like phoning Dan, except it would be more of a monologue and he wouldn’t hear a reply, but it was essentially the same.

“I have a feeling that if you knew I was doing this you’d find it hilarious, I mean seriously, I’m talking to you from my backyard and trying to imagine your replies in my mind.” Phil said with a little chuckle. “This is the point where you’d probably call me a ‘doofus’ and you’d laugh; that loud, obnoxious laugh that you can't help but do, I love it.”

“It’s kinda fitting that I’m talking to you right now. While I was growing up my mum would always say ‘start the new year as you mean to go on’ and I liked that saying, it seemed optimistic and like if you started the new year with a smile then you would be happy for the rest of the year.

“So since I’m talking to you right now, I like to think that it means that I’ll spend the rest of this year talking to you.” Phil broke off for a moment. “I bet you’d probably make a joke about how this probably would be more of an indication that I’m going to spend the rest of the year talking to myself.”

Phil froze as he heard a rustling noise followed by footsteps, he listened carefully hoping that there was nobody there. Relief poured over him as he noticed that it was just his neighbour drunkenly stumbling back into his house after enjoying the celebrations.

“Oh God, Dan, what are you doing to me?” Phil muttered. “You’ve got me standing out here alone, freezing cold and talking to myself. This is so stupid, but I can't bring myself to go back inside, I feel like if I don’t say what I want to say right now then maybe I’ll never say it.

“I miss you, Dan. Is that a stupid thing to say? I feel like I’ve been telling myself over and over that it should be impossible to miss someone that you have never even met in person, but it doesn’t change the fact that I miss you.

“I can't wait until it’s time for you to come back to earth. I don’t care what management says, I'm going to be there, I'm going to make sure that on the day that you land I will be there so meet you.” Phil said.

He laughed to himself a little and toed at a rock that was wedged in the grass, he had meant that. There was no way that he would be able to sit back and let Dan return to Earth without being there to see him in person.

“I’m know that I told you that we’re going to go stargazing together, and that is most definitely still going to happen, but I’m also going to take you for coffee.” Phil promised. “We’re going to go for coffee in a small little coffeehouse, not one of the huge corporate owned ones. I want to be able to talk to you and get to know you in person, I want to know how you take your coffee, I want to see the dimple from your photo on your file in person.

“I just want to spend time with you in a peaceful environment, no stress, I want to get to know who you are without both of us having our jobs surrounding us and looming over our heads. Do you know what’s stupid? I wish I was up there with you, I don’t want to go to space and the thought terrifies me because I prefer being on mission control but there is something about you that makes me wish that I could be up there with you.”

Phil shook his head and paused for a moment. If he had been up there with Dan would things be different now? Would they talk to each other all the time and share little facts about their lives back home? Or would they have a relationship like Dan and Mari had? Non-existent and filled with seemingly mutual dislike.

He liked to think that maybe he and Dan would have been close in that situation and that they would have reminisced about their lives together. They would have kept each other sane and they would have celebrated the holidays together.

“What are you doing right now, Dan?” Phil wondered out loud. “Are you busy and working? Or are you taking a break? Are you bored? Have you gotten into an argument with Thomas again? I know that he goes out of his way to rile you up but I wish that you wouldn’t bite so much, it’s just giving him more of an incentive. He isn’t worth your time.

“Not to mention the fact that the constant bickering and fighting makes you more stressed, I know that if I said that to you then you would deny it but it’s true, I can always hear the strain in your voice whenever you’re struggling to hide that you’ve been genuinely upset.

“This is the point where I would usually tell you a story about space; the stars, constellations, planets.” Phil murmured. “It doesn’t feel right though, I don’t want to tell a story that you won't hear. I like to tell them directly to you. I like the little hums that you make to remind me that you’re listening, as if I could ever forget.

“We’re interested in the same things too, I feel like we would never run out of things to talk about and one day I’ll prove that to you, I just want to make you happy. I also want to bring you home to meet my family, you’d love them, and I know that they’d love you. Martyn will probably annoy you eventually with all the questions but he’s the endearing sort of annoying. The kind that you wish would just go away but as soon as they do you end up missing them. That sort.”

“I don’t even know what I’m trying to say anymore, Dan, I know that I’m rambling and that I should probably just go inside but I feel closer to you when I’m looking at the stars. That saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’? It’s rubbish. You’ve been the only thing on my mind for weeks and you're not in my line of sight.”

Phil opened his mouth to continue speaking and let it fall shut with a loud sigh, there was so much he needed to say to Dan but at this rate he was worried that he would scare the guy off by being too intense. For all he knew, Dan thought of him as an acquaintance. No, that couldn’t be true, he would at the very least think of him as a friend.

The problem was that Phil wasn’t even sure if Dan was into guys, never mind being into him specifically.

What was worse?

Living with the knowledge that you were in love with your friend and never saying anything or knowing how it would have ended as you watch them move on with their life or confessing your feelings only to be rejected and witness your friendship slowly become more and more awkward until there was no communication anymore?

Phil honestly couldn’t say for sure which one he would hate most, but as he stared up at the glinting stars he was aware that he would have to live with one of them. That was unless he confessed and Dan returned his feelings, but that was a train of thought that he wanted to avoid thinking about because it would mean getting his hopes up and that was always a dangerous thing.

“I think I'm going to head back inside now, Dan.” Phil said quietly. “It’s pretty late and I'm freezing, I hope whatever happens in the future we’re still talking.”

Phil started strolling back towards the house, he paused for a moment before walking in and stared up at the starry sky.

“Goodnight,” he whispered, “and Happy New Year, Dan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all, sorry for the delay with this chapter, i promise i'll get back on the weekly updates now. 
> 
> i wasnt happy with this chapter, ngl, i rewrote it like 5 times but this is what we're left with so i hope it's alright
> 
> come find me on tumblr @asteroidphil ily <333 xx


	6. Cassiopeia

Dan had been practically bouncing since he had woken up that morning, and for very good reason too, he had decided. Today was the day that Phil would finally be back to work after arriving home from his holiday and Dan was beyond excited to finally be able to speak to him again, even though that thought made him feel like a bit of an arse because it meant that he was excited that Phil’s time with his family was over. He just couldn’t help it, he had so much to tell Phil about and he wanted to hear all about his trip back home.  

Even though he had tried to keep his excitement contained, it was obvious to everyone on the space station that he was waiting on Phil’s call and yet not even Thomas’ snide comments or Mari’s silent disapproval could dampen his good mood. He was happy, and he would be damned if he was going to let anyone ruin that. They could take their misery and shove so far up their asses that it would come pouring out of their mouths. In fact, it was entirely possible that that was what they had done, judging by the way they acted on a daily basis.

In comparison, there was something almost contagious about Phil and Dan wasn’t sure what it was about the guy that caused him to feel such a way. Maybe it was the way that he spoke, everything that he said was filled with passion and Dan could tell that he genuinely loved the topics that he talked about. Or maybe it was the way his laugh felt warmer than the sun or how it was filled with a passion that Dan wanted to see burning in his eyes in person, because he knew that a laugh that beautiful must be a sight worth seeing in person.

Dan honestly couldn’t wait to see it in person either, he was counting down the days till he could meet Phil and as he saw the number of days decreasing his excitement was rising uncontrollably.

“Still waiting on your boyfriend to call?” Thomas sneered as he poked his head into the room where Dan was lounging by the phone. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t bother, I mean it’s been a few days since he’s called, maybe he finally realised that he’s better off without your meaningless whining.”

“Was there something that you wanted?” Dan asked, trying to inject as much nonchalance and boredom into his voice as possible to hide that Thomas’ words had actually affected him.

“Nope, just passing by,” Thomas said and with that he was done, for some reason which Dan thought that he would never understand, Thomas had actually gone out of his own way just to try and annoy him.

It had worked, without knowing it Thomas had managed to play upon one of his biggest fears. It would be so easy for Phil to cut all contact, to just stop calling without making up an excuse, and Dan would be unable to do anything about it. He would have to wait until he was back on Earth to ask why Phil had stopped talking to him and even then, was that something that he really wanted to do?

It would seem a bit overbearing and creepy if he tracked him down to ask why he’d stopped calling, and that was counting on Dan being able to find him in the first place. The space centre where they worked was a massive place and it would be challenging to try and find Phil, especially if Phil had made enough connections so that if he told people not to tell Dan who he was then he would end up never finding out.

It was painful to think about.

No, he was being stupid. There was no reason for him to get stressed out about such a thing because Phil was a good guy and he had told Dan that he was going to call so Dan trusted him and had faith in him, he believed that Phil was going to call him. He wasn’t going to let a jackass like Thomas try to convince him otherwise.

He was going to have faith in Phil and trust that he knew the guy well enough to feel confident in his assumption that he would actually call like he had promised.

His thoughts were cemented by the shrill ringtone of the phone, and Dan paused to count to ten. He had to play it cool, he didn’t want to come across as being overly eager as that might be a bit weird and scare Phil off, but at the same time he didn’t want to wait too long because it might make Phil think that Dan wasn’t interested in talking to him. So as soon as his counting reached eight, he grabbed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dan, its Phil,” The familiar deep tone said almost sounding like he was in the room beside Dan.

“I know who you are, you Spork,” Dan said, and a wide grin instantly began to spread across his face, “you really think that if you go on holiday for a few days, then I’ll forget your name?”

“Well, you never know, stranger things have happened,” Phil replied and Dan could practically hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh really?” Dan asked sceptically. “What sort of stranger things?”

“Well, I mean there was the dinosaurs, they were pretty strange, and the way that they died was a bit peculiar.”

“Alright, alright, you can stop there because if I know you half as well as I think I do then that list could go on for hours, especially if you’re starting it at nearly the beginning of time,” Dan sighed, “besides, you forgot that you’re the strangest thing in the planet’s history.”

“Um, I think you’re mistaken on that one, because I’m not half as weird as you.” Phil retorted.

“Is that so?” Dan asked and he realised that he had really missed this friendly banter between himself and Phil.

“Oh yeah, definitely, I have it on record,” Phil said, “right here in your file it says, and I quote, ‘Daniel Howell is two times weirder than Philip Lester’.”

“Oh well if it says _that_ in my file then of course it must be completely true.” Dan said.

“Obviously,” Phil said.

“Seriously though, how was your trip back home?” Dan asked.

“It was good, it was nice to actually see my family in person again, rather than just seeing them over Skype,” Phil said, “but I think I started to get on my brother’s nerves after the first day because I kept congratulating him.”

Dan let out an undignified snort of amusement.

“Of course,” Dan murmured.

“Well, I had to make up for not being able to say it in person,” Phil said, defending himself.

“You know, if I was your brother then I would have kept telling you the good news over and over because I didn’t get to say it in person,” Dan said.

“I am glad that you’re not my brother,” Phil said and Dan wasn’t sure if it was just wishful thinking but he was pretty sure that he could detect a double meaning in Phil’s comment, “I told him that you said congrats, by the way, and he freaked out.”

“Good freak out or bad freak out?” Dan asked.

“Good. Definitely good.” Phil confirmed.

“Well in that case, you're welcome.” Dan said with a laugh.

“Honestly it was amazing, you would have thought that I had just told him that a famous singer he admired had congratulated him on his engagement.” Phil said with a snicker.

“Are you saying that I couldn't be a famous singer?” Dan asked.

“That's exactly what I'm saying,” Phil replied.

“Wow, rude much?” Dan joked, he was perfectly aware that he was unable to carry a tune, not that he would let that stop him from enjoying himself. “You haven't even heard me sing, Philip.”

“Ew, don’t call me Philip,” Phil said with an audible shudder, “that’s what my mum called me whenever I was in trouble when I was younger.”

“Whatever you say, Philip,” Dan agreed.

“I hate you,” Phil mumbled in a tone that implied anything but hatred.

“Sure, you do,” Dan agreed placatingly.

“Anyway,” Phil said with an edge of teasing in his voice, “I have heard you sing before.”

“What? When?” Dan asked, his voice practically a yelp as he tried to think back to when Phil could have possibly overheard him singing.

“You forgot to hang up once and I heard you singing some Muse songs to yourself as you worked.” Phil admitted.

“If you heard that then it means that you didn’t hang up either,” Dan said.

“I wasn’t going to pass up on such a golden opportunity,” Phil said.

Dan shrugged and nodded to himself, it made sense, if he had heard Phil singing along to himself then he probably would have paused to listen along. All friends would do that, of course.

“Anyway,” Phil continued, “nothing will ever be more amusing than you trying to sing like Matt Bellamy.”

“Shut up,” Dan said, “he has a great voice, it’s just so damn hard to copy. Seriously, how does he do it? His voice manages to hit notes that shouldn’t even exist.”

“He’s pretty talented.” Phil agreed.

“Talent? That doesn’t even seem to cover it.” Dan said.

“Wow, ok, I’ll remember that,” Phil said with more amusement than Dan was willing to accept.

“Remember what?” He asked Phil curiously.

“I’ll remember about that Matt Bellamy is one of your celebrity crushes,” Phil replied.

“He is _not_ a celebrity crush,” Dan protested, “I just admire him. A lot." 

“Uh huh, sure thing, Dan. Whatever you say, “Phil said in a tone that very heavily implied that he did not believe Dan in the slightest.

“It’s true, I admire him as an artist but my celebrity crush would have to be Jennifer Lawrence or Evan Peters,” Dan said.

“He’s a great actor, American Horror Story is a great show, although Hotel was a bit disappointing to me.” Phil said.

“Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from but I was still a good season, better than Roanoke by far.”  Dan commented.

“Yeah, I don’t think any season will ever be as good as the first two though,” Phil said, “they set the bar pretty high with those.”

“You never know,” Dan said with a shrug, “let’s try and stay optimistic, this next season might be the one.”

“We can watch it together,” Phil said.

“Yeah, that would be good, I’ll definitely be back on Earth by the time it airs.” Dan said, with images of himself and Phil curled up on a sofa and watching the show together.

They would be wrapped up in a cosy blanket and Dan would probably end up falling asleep on Phil because he always fell asleep while watching TV and he imagined that he would be completely comfortable leaning on Phil, so falling asleep would be inevitable.  Maybe Phil would glance down at him and smile as he saw that Dan hadn’t lasted to the end of the show.

It was wishful thinking, Dan knew that, but it didn’t mean that it would never happen.  Miracles existed and Dan could maybe find his own miracle in Phil’s arms.

“So,” Phil spoke up again, “did you do anything to celebrate the new year up there?”

“Um, not really,” Dan said.

There was no way that he was going to admit to Phil that he had actually sat by the window and spent the entirety of his own little countdown and the first hour of the ‘new year’ staring down at Earth and thinking about Phil. He had suspected that Phil would have been sleeping and so he wished him pleasant dreams and hoped that he had had a good night with his family. He had even recounted the last few days to ‘Phil’ through the window, imagining Phil’s responses as vividly as he could to himself.

No, Dan could not admit to that. He would cause Phil to start running for the hills. That was the last thing that Dan wanted.

“You didn’t?” Phil asked again, and Dan wondered whether he was imagining the pang of sadness that he could hear in Phil’s voice.

“I don’t really have festive company up here,” Dan said, “but I did do my own little countdown up here and saw in the new year.”

“That’s good,” Phil said, but Dan could hear that there was something that Phil wasn’t saying.

“It was weird though, because I was basing the New Year on the time that mission control would which meant I was celebrating it later than I had last year.” Dan said. “I guess that means my year was a few hours longer.”

“How does it feel to have lived a few hours longer?” Phil asked.

“Depressing,” Dan muttered, “2016 was completely and utterly shit, I would rather have had a few hours less of it rather than a few hours more.”

“I’d agree with you there.” Phil muttered.

“Here’s hoping that this year will be a better one.” Dan said before taking a deep, shuddering breath and admitting something that made him feel vulnerable. “I missed talking to you.” Dan admitted.

“I missed talking to you too” Phil replied.

“Did you really?” Dan asked.

“Of course, I kept wanting to get in touch with you and tell you all about the stars and the next constellation on my list, but I couldn’t.”

“I wanted to hear them,” Dan admitted, “I was so tempted to google constellations to read up about some of them as a bedtime story. I did in fact, I only read a few words though.”

“Why?” Phil asked. “Why only a few words?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Dan lied.

“Come on, Dan,” Phil said, “Tell me the truth, I can tell when you’re not being completely honest.”

“No, you can’t,” Dan argued, “You can’t even see me right now, how would you be able to tell whether I’m lying or not?”

“It’s your voice,” Phil said.                                   

“What about my voice?” Dan asked, he didn’t think that his voice changed when he was lying.

“It goes up a bit whenever you’re trying to hide something,” Phil stated.

“No, it doesn’t,” Dan lied, purposefully trying to lower his voice to prove his own point.

“Now you just sound like a chain smoker,” Phil said.

“This is unfair” Dan said as he shook his head to himself.

“No, I’m just more perceptive than you are,” Phil said, “now tell me why you stopped reading about the constellations, you could have taught me for once.”

“I could never explain it as well as you do,” Dan muttered, before dropping the volume of his voice even lower and continuing, “neither could the computer.”

“Really?” Phil asked and if Dan was right then he sounded flattered.

“Really,” Dan said, “when I tried to read up about it myself it was too much like studying and I was reminded too much of being back at school and uni.”

“That’s cute,” Phil commented.

“Shut up.” Dan muttered as he ran a hand across his face feeling the heat from his red cheeks radiating. He was extremely grateful that Phil was unable to see him.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop teasing you,” Phil said.

“Thank you, I wouldn’t have been able to put up with that, I would have probably would’ve ended up hanging up on you,” Dan admitted.

“Alright then, maybe we should move on to the next constellation before you cut me off,” Phil said, “I can be your most interesting lecturer.”

“Good idea, what’s our topic today then, Sir.” Dan asked before instantly regretting it.

There was a momentary pause as they both assessed what Dan had said and whilst Dan was overcome with embarrassment he heard Phil laughing.

“Jeez, Dan,” he said through his laughter, “I can just tell that you didn’t think that one through.”

“A classic lesson in thinking before you speak,” Dan said with an awkward laugh.

“I wouldn’t want you to do that,” Phil admitted, “I find the stuff that you come out with when you’re not thinking hilarious.”

“Oh yeah, I’m a right old riot,” Dan agreed, rolling his eyes to himself, “before we get into the nitty gritty of my comedian personality, are you planning on starting your story?”

“Alright then, I can take a hint,” Phil said before he changed the subject, “Alright, so next on our little list is Cassiopeia which is a constellation within the milky way, it’s actually a really easy one to spot as the five primary stars in it create a sort of flattened ‘w’.”

“I know the one that you mean, I’ve definitely seen it before,” Dan said.

“Yeah? It’s a beautiful one to look at, not my favourite but it’s up there on my list,” Phil said.

“So, what is your favourite?” Dan asked.

“Shh,” Phil scolded, “I’ll tell you when we get to that one, stop interrupting class.”

“Oh, you're really going to take this professor thing seriously aren’t you?” Dan asked.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, yes, I’m listening,” Dan said.

“Good. So, Cassiopeia is seen in the Northern sky and it is also called the vain queen because of Greek mythology.” Phil said. “So, in Greek mythology Cassiopeia was the wife of the King Cepheus, and she was known to be very vain so as a punishment, Poseidon the god of the sea decided to send a monster to destroy the coasts of her country. Cassiopeia and Cepheus knew that they needed to get rid of the monster so they decided to sacrifice their daughter; Andromeda. They tied her to a rock and left her there for the monster.”

“What the fuck?” Dan said. “Greek mythology is so scary, like all these parents and families that are so willing to just kill each other in order to save their own skin? Man, I thought that my family had problems.”

“Yeah, I have a feeling that if we had been born back then, then we would both have been sacrifices.” Phil said.

“That’s actually true,” Dan agreed.

“Anyway, Andromeda didn’t really die,” Phil said, “She was saved by Perseus.”

“At least someone had some sense of morality,” Dan said.

“True,” Phil agreed, “all of the people from the story have their own constellation named after them now.”

“Sacrifice your child and become immortalised in the stars forever.” Dan muttered.

“Well, they would have been immortalised in books anyway,” Phil said.

“They don’t deserve it.” Dan said.

“I’m afraid that we don’t get to make that decision.” Phil said. “So, Cassiopeia is actually a really interesting constellation. It contains the remnants of two supernova explosions which occurred one hundred years apart with the first being in 1572, the first was visible from earth and was named Tycho’s Star, it was just about as bright as the planet Venus.

“It also features another supernova which is around eleven thousand light years away, there should have been light from it visible from back in the seventeenth century however there isn’t any record which makes astronomers and scientists believe that maybe there was clouds of dust around it that obscured it from being seen.”

“Space is so complicated, I love it.” Dan muttered.

“The five main stars that create the flattened ‘w’ are Caph, Shedir, Gamma, Ruchbah, and Epsilon. Shedir and Gamma are actually the brightest stars in the constellation. All the stars in the main ‘w’ range from being fifty-five light years to five hundred and fifty light years away, although most people tend to assume that they’re roughly the same distance away from earth.”

“Supernovae are fascinating,” Dan said.

“Cataclysmic explosions of high mass stars at the end of their lives?” Phil asked. “Of course, it’s fascinating. They literally shine with so much energy that they are able to outshine galaxies. It’s amazing, when a supergiant star explodes they can burn with temperatures of billions of degrees and atoms of heavy chemical elements are created. Elements like lead and gold in fact.”

“They’re not that common though,” Dan said.

“No, there haven’t been any in our galaxy since 1604 but once could occur at literally any moment.”

Dan paused for a moment and wondered what it would be like to see such a thing in person and not just in pictures. It was the sort of thing that astronomers all over the world dreamed of.  To see that raw power and beauty in action? It was unfathomable.

“Tell me more about supernovae?” Dan asked.

“Dan, you already know all of this,” Phil said with an amused laugh.

“Yeah, and you know that I want to hear it from you because it’s better that way,” Dan replied.

“Fine,” Phil said with a playful groan, “I guess I could maybe, possibly humour you.”

“I knew you’d see it my way in the end.” Dan said.

“Uh huh, sure you did,” Phil muttered, “now be quiet or your bedtime story is over.”

“Consider my lips zipped,” Dan said, miming the action of zipping his lips to himself.

“So, we’ll use a red supergiant star as an example for this explanation,” Phil began, “and this is what happens in the majority of cases but not all of them. So, the star is on the verge of dying, but it is supported by fusion producing iron in the core which is creating an outward force that negates the effects of the inward pull of gravity meaning that the star is essentially stable.

“As the star dies, the fusion within the core begins to slow down and the pressure within the core begins to drop due to the reduced energy output that would have previously been created from the process of the fusion of iron. The force of gravity pulling inwards is now stronger than the energy output from the core which put the star at risk of collapse.  The core then collapses and it happens really fast, faster than people could even comprehend. It collapses at a quarter of the speed of light.

“The iron nuclei decompose into neutrons and there is a tiny, intense burst of little particles, or neutrinos. Finally, the star explodes. This happens because as the star collapses, it rebounds from the core with a huge cataclysmic shock wave that causes the outer layers to compress and heat up. The star then ends up as a black hole or a neutron star.”

“Can I talk now?” Dan cheekily asked after a few moments of silence.

“I don’t know, I was actually enjoying the peace,” Phil said.

“Shut up, you doofus.” Dan said with a grin.

“Wow, aren’t you creative with your insults there, Daniel?” Phil asked.

“You know, for someone who hates being called Philip so much, you sure do call me Daniel a hell of a lot.” Dan said.

“Do you dislike being called Daniel?” Phil asked.

“Not when you say it.” Dan accidently admitted.

He hadn’t even realised how true that was until he had said it. He usually hated being called Daniel, his nose would screw up in disgust and a small sound of discontent would escape from between his lips. He would be obvious in his disgust at the use of his full name. yet, when it was Phil who was addressing him as ‘Daniel’ it didn’t feel wrong at all, it felt normal. Familiar, even. Almost like he had been hearing it his entire life, which he technically had as his family members never referred to him as ‘Dan’ as much as he had asked them too.

He was always ‘Daniel’ and it had always made him feel like he was in trouble. Not with Phil though, the way Phil said his name was like a warm embrace. Dan wanted to listen to Phil saying his name all day.

“That’s good because I love the name Daniel.” Phil admitted.

For some reason, that felt like the highest possible compliment, especially coming from Phil and that was insane. Dan hadn’t even chosen his name.

“I just so happen to like the name Phil.” Dan commented.

“Funny how the world works isn’t it?”  Phil said.

There was a moment of filled silence in which Dan knew that he could admit everything to Phil, he could tell him all about how he felt and how he just wanted to spend every night falling asleep in Phil’s arms. He wanted to mention how that one picture of Phil that he had received had changed his perceptions of beauty and how he had fallen in love with those gentle blue eyes despite the fact he’d only stared into them through a photograph.

It was his chance to say something, anything really, but he didn’t take it because it didn’t feel right to say that you were falling hopelessly in love with someone over the phone, it was the sort of thing that needed to be said in person.

Telling someone that you loved them when you were 400km away with no way of seeing them any time soon was the douchebag equivalent of breaking up with somebody by text.

What was even scarier to Dan was the fact that he was just throwing around a word as strong as ‘love’, a word which he had secretly never believed in up until now, but he had to believe it now because the way that he was feeling was too much to be a crush.

It was strong and overbearing, almost painfully so, but it reaffirmed Dan’s theory that this must be what love felt like because Dan was finding himself thinking about Phil as often as possible, he was looking at Phil’s picture before he fell asleep and he was feeling more lonely than usual.

“Hilarious,” Dan agreed quietly.

 “It’s not long until you’re home.” Phil said reassuringly and Dan guessed that his homesickness was painfully obvious.

“I can’t wait,” Dan admitted, “and that makes me feel like the biggest dick in the universe because this is my dream. I love space and the stars and everything about my job, but I just want to come home right now.”

“It’s normal to get homesick, Dan,” Phil said reassuringly, “you’re hundreds of kilometres from home, you haven’t seen your family in months, and you have two brick walls for company.”

“it still doesn’t make any sense though, I should be grateful, there are people all over the world that would give their left arm for this opportunity.” Dan whispered.

“Maybe they would, but I can guarantee that they too would end up missing home eventually,” Phil said.

“I’ve been on missions before and I didn’t feel homesick,” Dan said, “maybe this is a sign that my time is up as an astronaut. Maybe I’m not cut out for the job anymore.”

“Come on, Dan, you and I both know that that’s a load of rubbish.” Phil said.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“This field is highly competitive and only the best of the best are chosen, you are one of the best, Dan.” Phil said honestly.

“The best burn out sometimes, Phil.” Dan said sadly.

“Just you wait, Dan, when you get back here I will do my best to prove to you that you’re not ‘past it’ or ‘burnt out’ and the next time that you go up there, I’ll be right here guiding you through the whole thing and hopefully you’ll have a better team with you.”

“You’re too damn good for this world Phil Lester.” Dan said.

It was true, that much Dan was one hundred percent positive of.

That night as Dan was curled up in his sleeping bag he was thinking about how true his earlier statement had been when he had been talking to Phil. The man was far, far too good for the world. All his words were filled with a sense of comfort and reassurance that Dan had never before known a person could radiate.

Dan couldn’t wait for the day when he would be able to tell Phil in person that he was special, that he was the only person that was capable of instilling these feelings in Dan. He wanted to tell him that he made his heart do a little flippy over thing in a way that would have made him concerned for his health if it hadn’t felt so good.

So as Dan fell asleep that night, his mind was filled with soft eyes and gently reassuring words and he was counting down the days until it was finally time to meet Phil in person.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope this was ok for you guys <3
> 
> i'm thinking there is maybe only 2 or 3 chapters left in this fic! i hope you guys are enjoying how this is going, honestly this is the first time i've ever wrote anything of this sort so i really do appreciate the feedback in your comments. 
> 
> come chat to me on tumblr @asteroidphil


	7. Fears

“Hey, Jessie,” Phil called out as he reluctantly jogged a few steps to fall in beside the red-haired girl who was his co-worker-friend-acquaintance, to be honest he wasn’t entirely sure which one she was but he was hoping that however tentative their relationship, she would be kind enough to do him a favour.

“Phil, hi, how was your trip home?” she asked him.

“It was good,” Phil said with an easy smile as he thought about his family, “it was nice to see everyone again. I have to admit though, I kinda missed being here.”

“Really? Is the American culture taking over your life already? I bet it was difficult being in a country that didn’t have a flag on the outside of every single building.” She joked.

Phil paused for a moment as the light caught her eyes making them seem a few shades lighter than they actually were and Phil found himself thinking of how similar a shade they were to Dan’s and how he couldn’t wait to see Dan’s eyes in person.

“Or maybe it’s a person that you missed?” She asked, obviously noticing his silence.

“Ah, I-”

“Who are they? Do I know them?” She asked.

“I don’t know if I like them yet,” Phil lied, he was pretty damn sure, “I’m still working things out.”

“Uh huh, sure you are,” she said with a look that just screamed that Phil hadn’t fooled her with his lie, thankfully she took pity on him fairly quickly and decided to change the subject, “anyway, I’m not meaning to be rude or anything, is there something I can do for you? You kinda seemed like you needed something when you shouted on me.”

“Oh yeah, I did,” Phil said, “you’re working next Monday, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed,” she said with a wide grin that caused Phil’s hopes to plummet a few notches, “I can’t wait, I’ve never worked during the actual re-entry before, I’m so excited.”

“yeah, it’ll be amazing,” Phil agreed, seeing his goal slipping further and further away.

“Are you working it?” Jessie asked.

“No, I’m actually on the hunt for someone who would be willing to swap a shift so that I could be there.” Phil admitted.

“Ah,” she said understandingly, “well, I’m sorry to be a bust but the only thing that could stop me being at the landing is someone physically restraining me and/or killing me.”

“Morbid, but I understand.” Phil said.

“You can keep asking around, maybe you’ll be lucky,” she said with a shrug, “honestly though, I think most people would fight to keep their shift on that day.”

“Yeah, I was kind of expecting that,” Phil admitted.

“You could try Ronnie,” Jessie suggested with a shrug, “I heard that his Mom is pretty sick and next Monday is his last shift before he goes on a few weeks holiday to spend time with her.”

“That’s awful.” Phil said.

“Yeah, but maybe it could work in your benefit.” She said with a shrug, and Phil was mentally taken aback by the callousness of her statement.

Jessie had always seemed so kind and helpful whenever Phil had spoken to her and granted, he had never had any deep conversations or spent a lot of time getting to know her, but he had honestly thought that she was a nice person. It just so happened that she was cold and calculating and willing to assess a person’s weakness to see how it would benefit herself.

That made Phil want to take a step back, why was it that so many people were out to try and find things that would only benefit themselves? Whatever happened to just being a good person because it was the right thing to do?

“I don’t think so,” Phil said carefully, “I’ll just ask around and hope that I get lucky.”

“Alright, to each their own I guess, but don’t say that I didn’t give you the heads up.” She said with a shrug.

“I just wouldn’t feel right using a guy’s ill mum against him.” Phil said.

“That’s what I don’t like about you Brits,” Jessie admitted, “you’re too polite, you need to take every opportunity and embrace it, grab onto chances with both hands and roll with them. It’s the only way that you’ll ever get what you want.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Phil lied, “uh, I’m going to go and ask around, I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing,” she said with an easy smile.

It was interesting to Phil how her eyes no longer resembled Dan’s in the slightest. The softness and warmth was gone like a shroud that was previously covering the truth had been lifted, and then she was gone, she flounced off along the corridor with her ponytail bouncing and smiling sweetly at everyone she passed.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate.” One of Phil’s closer friend’s, Tyler, said as he slapped Phil on the back making him jump partially from shock but mostly from the pain.

Tyler was always easily distinguishable by his thick New York accent and the way that he liked to chuck the odd English word or phrase into a sentence whenever he spoke to Phil to ‘help him feel more at home’. Not only was he noticeable due to his voice but also his looks. He stood at 6’4’’, making Phil constantly amazed that there was actually a person that he had to look up to, and looked more like a Californian surfer than the actors on TV did.

“Not a ghost,” Phil muttered, still staring after where Jessie had disappeared.

“Let me guess, little miss innocent finally showed you her true colours?” he asked.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Phil said.

“Damn, I had you down for fourteen months, but I guess Teresa will win this round.” Tyler said.

“You guys were betting on this?” Phil asked.

“Oh yeah, of course we were.” Tyler said, “whenever we get someone new here we start a betting pool to see how long they’ll trust Jessie for before she lets the true colours show.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, and now that you know, you can take part in the next betting pool,” Tyler said excitedly, “don’t worry though, I think you did pretty well considering I had you down for fourteen months.”

“Does it really take people that long to suss her out?” Phil asked.

“Yeah, I believe the longest was three years, poor bastard told her all of his secrets and she ended up making him relocate.” Tyler said.

“So how does she still work here?” Phil asked in confusion, he would have thought that someone so callous and manipulative would have been cast out a long time ago.

“She’s good at her job.” Tyler said simply.

“She’s two-faced.” Phil said.

“You’re just bitter because she pulled the wool over your eyes for so long,” Tyler laughed, “besides, it’s not like you spoke to her that often, you shouldn’t feel too bad about missing the obvious.”

“I don’t feel bad, I’m just annoyed." Phil said.

“Mate,” he said, “you’ll be annoyed for a couple of weeks but once a new guy starts then you’ll join the betting pool like everyone else before you have done, hell, like I did. It’s just how it is, like an initiation of sorts.”

“Usually initiations are over within the first week,” Phil pointed out.

“Yeah well, this isn’t really your normal job now, is it?”

“I guess that’s very true.” Phil admitted and Tyler barked out a loud laugh and slapped Phil on the back again, he was always doing that and Phil was still trying to think of a nice way to ask him to stop.

“Hey, what were you wanting from Jessie anyway?” Tyler asked.

“I was hoping that she would switch a shift with me so that I could be there for the landing.” Phil admitted.

“Damn, you’re a fool if you think anyone would ever take you up on that offer.” Tyler said.

“What do you mean?” Phil asked, “I knew that it was a long shot, but I figured that somebody might be willing to do me a favour.”

“You were so wrong about that,” Tyler said, “there used to be a guy that worked here who missed the birth of his first son so that he could be there for the landing. Like seriously, launches and landings are golden, you’ll never ever convince anyone to switch shifts with you. It doesn’t matter how many favours you’ve done for others.”

“So, what would you recommend?” Phil asked.

“You’re going about it all wrong,” Tyler said, “you need to go higher up.”

“Higher up?”

“Think about it, you were put on shift for the EVAs because the people in charge noticed that you talk regularly to Dan and you’re able to calm him down when he gets worried.” Tyler said, and Phil wondered how common this knowledge was.

“What’s your point?”

“Well, travelling back to Earth is a hell of a lot scarier than a quick jaunt out into space,” Tyler said, “maybe you should play it from that angle and try and get yourself on the rota for next Monday.”

“That might actually work,” Phil said.

“Of course, it’ll work,” Tyler said, “I came up with the idea.”

“You’re so modest, Tyler, I think that might be my favourite quality about you.” Phil joked.

“No, your favourite quality about me is that I sometimes talk in a British accent to help you feel more at home.” Tyler said, the entire sentence spoken in an appallingly bad British accent.

“All that accent does is remind me that the Americans stereotypically view the Brits as pompous, posh tea drinkers.” Phil said.

“Well, that’s the truth, isn’t it?” Tyler asked, “didn’t you spend your first few weeks working here complaining that none of our supermarkets stocked your favourite teabags?”

“That’s irrelevant,” Phil said, remembering in vivid detail that he had suffered for at least a month with shitty teabags and sadness until his mum managed to ship some good ones over to him.

He just couldn’t get his head around the idea of ice tea, it was completely unnatural, who wanted to drink cold tea? The only time people should ever drink cold tea was when it had been accidentally forgotten about and drinking it was essentially a punishment for letting it go cold. It was an experience that was only ever done by plugging your nose and downing the entire thing in one go whilst shuddering the entire time.

It was just something that Phil would never understand. Cold tea was appalling.

“Uh huh, totally irrelevant,” Tyler agreed with a roll of his eyes, “listen, a few of the guys are going out for a drink after our shift, why don’t you tag along?”

“Ah, I can’t,” Phil said, “I have plans straight after work.”

“Plans?” Tyler asked, his eyes lighting up almost instantly, “a date? Is my little Phil finally growing up?”

“What? No, I mean yes I’m a grown up, I don’t need to grow up any more, but I don’t have a date tonight.” Phil said, not in that sense anyway. He wished with all his heart that it could have been an actual date with Dan, but he guessed that he would have to wait until Dan was back on Earth for that.

That was if Dan even wanted to go on a date with Phil. He had agreed to go stargazing with him, which Phil was extremely excited for and was already planning out, but would Dan think it was a friend date or a date _date_? Phil really hoped that he was expecting the latter.

“Aw, don’t worry buddy, you’ll lose your virginity eventually.” Tyler said with a loud laugh that made Phil wince a little.

Before Phil could even respond, Tyler was gone and Phil was left standing alone in the corridor feeling completely confused and yet also slightly hopeful that there may be a chance that he could be there for Dan returning to Earth.

Honestly, it was the best and yet most confusing job that Phil had ever had and he could remember when he was younger and talking to his parents about how excited he was to finally finish high school and his dad had turned around and said to him that ‘you never truly leave high school’, the saying had never seemed truer. Phil could see the truth in that statement more and more every day, some of the people he worked with really were just stupid teenagers disguised as adults.

* * *

 

“Wait,” Dan said, “there's a chance that you might actually be able to be there when I come home?”

“It's looking promising,” Phil said excitedly.

“When will you find out?” Dan asked.

“I'm not a hundred percent sure,” Phil admitted, “they said that I would know within the next few days.”

“Why couldn't they just tell you there and then?” Dan asked.

“Well, I guess since they were fully staffed for that particular shift then they must have to run it by their superiors.” Phil guessed.

 “You’d think that they would be equipped to deal with adding a person to the rota.” Dan muttered, in slight irritation, these people literally created the rota every month and were able to delegate who was in which team so then why was it that they were unable to give the go ahead to add just one more person to the shift.

“Right?” Phil said, “I thought that too, but I guess it has more to do with the fact that it’s adding someone to the re-entry shift. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got tons of requests from people asking to join that shift.”

“I guess that’s true, but then why are they considering your request when they would have just turned most people down outright?” Dan asked in confusion, there was no way that they would show any favouritism to anyone no matter how much they wanted to.

So why was Phil’s request to join the re-entry shift being considered? It didn’t make any sense, Phil would have had to have had a really good excuse.

“I gave them some good reasons,” Phil said evasively.

“Yeah, I gathered that already, I need more information though, what were these ‘good reasons’?”

“That’s a secret.” Phil said.

“Come on, Phil,” Dan whined, “you can’t just tell me that you had good reasons for the higher ups to consider adding you to the shift but then not tell me what exactly those reasons are, that’s so cruel.”

“I’ll make you a deal then,” Phil said, “I will tell you the main reason when you’re back on Earth. It’s not that long away now.”

“I know it’s not that long away but it feels like it is, in fact it feels as if time is slowing down the closer that we get,” Dan said, “like the universe is giving me one last big, fat middle finger.”

“One day you’ll realise that the world is not out to get you.” Phil said and Dan could hear the faint lilt of amusement buried underneath the words.

“Of course, the world isn’t out to get me you Spoon,” Dan said as he rolled his eyes to himself, “the _universe_ is out to get me, there’s a difference.”

“How could I forget,” Phil deadpanned.

“Has anything else interesting happened down there?” Dan asked, “I need the juicy gossip, it’s so lonely up here with no tea to spill.”

“Did you really just say that?”

“Yes, of course I did, now come on,” Dan said, “spill the tea.”

Dan listened eagerly as Phil told him all about the high school type drama of life working for mission control. It was confusingly amazing to Dan that people could be so bizarre as to actually run a betting pool on how long it would take new start to realise that a particular person was aiming to screw everyone over. 

“You know what doesn’t make any sense to me?” Dan asked finally.

“Hmm?”

“What if the whole reason Jessie is the way she is, is because she knows that the entire team treats her as a punchline to some huge joke?” Dan asked.

“You think she knows?”

“Of course, she knows,” Dan said confidently, “she won’t be an idiot, she’s obviously clever enough to be able to plan out ways in order to get what she wants which means she has someone who tells her information or she has other ways of getting it. She’s not going to miss the fact that her entire team are betting against her.”

“You’re right,” Phil murmured, “I feel so bad.”

“Why do you feel bad?” Dan asked curiously, “Have you done anything bad to her, anything that makes you seem like a dick?”

“No, but I didn’t go and find her and tell her the truth either.” Phil said.

“Would that have benefitted anyone?” Dan asked, “seriously, what good would have come from it?”

“I would have told her the truth,” Phil said, “and I wouldn’t feel guilty.”

“She already knows the truth, and you have nothing to feel guilty about,” Dan said reassuringly, “if anything you should be mad. Hell, I’m mad on your behalf.”

“Why?” Phil asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Because, you Doofus, I care about you and these people were not only laughing at her, but also laughing at you too,” Dan said, “they would have known exactly what she was like and they could have warned you so that you weren’t screwed over, but they didn’t. instead they laughed and joked and watched you interact with her blissfully unaware.”

“I’m sure they weren’t watching all the time.” Phil said.

“So, it’s just a coincidence that Tyler happened to come across you as soon as you found out the truth? Or that he told you about the betting pool at that specific moment in time.” Dan asked, feeling the anger coursing through him on Phil’s behalf.

“I guess that makes sense,” Phil said quietly.

“Why aren’t you more angry?” Dan asked, feeling slightly frustrated that Phil wasn’t giving off more of a reaction.

“What’s the point?” Phil asked, “I’m just disappointed that they could actually do this, but at the end of the day I still have to work with them and the majority of them are all working the re-entry shift so I don’t want to be given the shift only to end up in an argument with someone that will cause me to be sent home early.”

“I guess that’s logical,” Dan admitted, “I don’t know, I guess you’re more level headed than I am. I’m usually pretty quick to jump on certain things.”

“I’ve noticed that about you, you have a hasty personality and you’re very quick to love or hate.” Phil said.

“That sounds like some new age-y mumbo jumbo.” Dan said with a snicker.

“Hey,” Phil said with mock offence, “it’s actually from my grandma’s tarot cards so be nice.”

“I thought you weren’t meant to share tarot cards?” Dan asked, “or is that just a rumour?”

“No, no, it’s true,” Phil said, “my grandma made me go through an entire cleansing ritual thing to make the cards mine.”

“Did you burn bones?” Dan asked, “because I think that’s actually a way to invite demons into your home, and I will not be coming to your place if its haunted.”

The laugh that answered Dan’s question was like music to his ears, it was beautiful and made him want to pat himself on the back for being the cause of it.

“No, of course not,” Phil said, “anyways, my family is perfectly aware that I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near fire because I’m so clumsy that I would probably end up tripping and setting myself and everything around me alight.”

“Thanks for the warning, I promise to never take you anywhere where there might be a chance of coming across fire.” Dan promised.

“Alright,” Phil said, “I’ll agree to that but I’m warning you now that there is no chance that you'll ever stop me from being near fire on Bonfire Night.”

“Is this your way of warning me that you turn into an arsonist one day a year like a fiery werewolf?” Dan asked.

“What? No of course not,” Phil insisted, “you have a weird brain.”

“Says you,”

“I like going to the Bonfire and watching the fireworks,” Phil said, “it's a family tradition.”

“Somehow I feel like that's a very dangerous tradition for your family to have.” Dan said.

“We’ve only ever had one accident and no one was hurt, we’re more careful now,” Phil said.

“Do I even want to know about this accident?” Dan asked.

“Ah, probably not,” Phil said evasively, before changing the subject entirely, “so, are you prepared for the trip back home?”

“I’ve already packed most of my things up,” Dan admitted, “I know it's stupid and I still have a while left up here, but I can't wait and I have almost everything ready to go.”

“What about the flight?”

“What about it?”

“Well, are you ready for it?” Phil asked.

“I think so, I honestly don't know though, it doesn't matter how ready I feel because when the actual day gets here I know that I'm going to be scared as fuck.” Dan admitted.

“That's completely natural,” Phil said reassuringly, “you shouldn't feel bad about that.”

“I should be used to it though,” Dan grumbled, “this is something that shouldn’t scare me because it shouldn't be new to me.”

“Dan everyone gets scared, there’s nothing wrong with you for being worried about the flight home. It’s dangerous and terrifying and your feelings are normal.” Phil said reassuringly.

“Really?” Dan asked.

“Really.”

“I don’t know, Phil, it feels as though I can’t actually say how scared I really am because people will think that I’m just being a baby.” Dan whispered, afraid that Thomas or Mari might be walking passed and overhear his confession.

“Seriously, Dan, listen to me when I promise you that even Thomas will be a more than a little bit scared on the actual day.” Phil said.

“Now that I struggle to believe.” Dan said determinedly, shaking his head to himself a little.

“Why is that?”

“Well, he’s Thomas,” Dan said, “he’s boisterous and undeniably mean, there’s no way that he’s scared. His entire existence seems to resolve around proving to everyone around him that he’s better than they are.”

“Exactly,” Phil said, “he’s always so determined to prove to everyone that he isn’t scared and he ends up having to bury his fear behind cruel defences.”

“I still don’t know,” Dan muttered.

“For someone who managed to see through Tyler and the rest of them back down here without even seeing them going about, you managed to catch onto the truth pretty quickly,” Phil said, “so why are you so stubbornly unable to see what’s right in front of your face?”

Dan could honestly say the same thing to Phil, it wasn’t like he had been subtle with his feelings. He was constantly mentioning things that they would do together when he got back to Earth, so why wasn’t Phil bringing it up? Why did he never bring it up?

Maybe he was too much like Dan in that aspect, they both wanted to wait until they were face to face, but then there was the problem that Dan may be making the whole thing up in his head and Phil might only consider him a friend.

Dan could spend hours going around in circles between thinking that Phil considered him a friend and thinking that Phil might genuinely return his feelings. It was confusing and honestly, it made Dan a little bit dizzy.

 “I don’t know, it makes sense, it makes a lot of sense,” Dan said.

“But?” Phil prompted.

“But, if it’s true then it makes me kinda sad,” Dan said, “he could’ve talked to me and, although I wouldn’t have been able to reassure him very well, I definitely would have been able relate to him and maybe help him to feel a little bit less alone.”

“Dan, you can’t spend your life thinking about what could have been, you’ll drive yourself mad trying to think of all the ‘what ifs’.”

“Maybe you’re right, I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about the trip home and the fact that if it goes wrong then there’s a chance that I could die in a vacuum surrounded by people who hate my guts.”

“Dan,” Phil said, his voice sounding weaker, “please don’t think about that, you’re going to be fine.”

“Am I though?” Dan asked.

“Of course, you are, you have to be because I have things planned for us for when you get back.” Phil said.

“I don’t want to think about this anymore,” Dan admitted quietly, feeling weaker for admitting that it was bothering him, “please, distract me?”

“Ah sure, I can ramble on for a bit if you want?”

“Please.”

“Alright then, this might be a bit jumbled because I didn’t really prepare anything for tonight but here we go.” Phil said.

And so, Phil began to talk, he was right, his words did get jumbled in places and occasionally he would forget a certain fact or statistic and find himself floundering for a few moments until he managed to recall it. Dan didn’t interrupt him though.

Phil spoke about the planets and how there were outer and inner planets. The inner planets all had rocky bodies and were warmer, as they were closer to the sun and despite being vastly different they all had solid, rocky crusts. In comparison, the outer planets were mostly made up of gas and were huge and surrounded by dozens of moons which essentially caused them to form their very own tiny planetary system.

He talked about the rings around Saturn and how they were composed of water and ice and the tiniest element of dust. He spoke about the giant red spot on Jupiter which was a storm that was so big that the Earth could fit inside it at least two times, if not three. He spoke about how the clouds in Neptune’s atmosphere were believed to be frozen methane.

He even talked about the surface of Venus and how it seems to be composed of volcanoes and lava flows and with its extremely thick clouds the heat that entered was unable to leave causing the planet to be four hundred and sixty degrees Celsius.

Phil talked and talked until it was the early hours of the morning and his voice was growing hoarse, hoping that he would be able to alleviate even just a little bit of Dan’s worries.

He finally paused, coughing slightly to clear his throat.

“Dan?”

There was only the sound of slow, steady breathing accented by a slight snore in reply to Phil’s question.

“Goodnight, Dan, I can’t wait until you're home,” Phil murmured, “sleep well.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be the flight home whoop 
> 
> i hope this was alright for you all, your comments have made my week and i love you guys so much <333
> 
> come chat to me on tumblr @asteroidphil


	8. Homeward Bound

 Dan woke up two hours before his alarm was due to go off. Normally he would glance at the time and feel a sense of satisfaction that he was able to go back to sleep for a while longer and then roll over in his sleeping bag and return to the blissful darkness of sleep. This particular morning was completely different though, the second that Dan opened his eyes he felt his heart start to beat at almost double the pace.

There was an excited unease in the air and Dan knew that no matter how hard he tried there would be no chance in hell that he would be able to actually fall asleep again. After all, today was the day where he would set off for home.

He would miss being in the international Space Station but he was definitely looking forward to going home, even if it technically wasn’t his real home that he was going to. He was going to be in a completely different country but he would be back on solid ground and he would be able to catch a plane to go and visit his family and friends. He would even be able to go and see Phil in person.

Every time they spoke on the phone or the radio Dan eagerly asked Phil whether there was any update on whether he would be working the shift for the return, but there never was. Phil always said that he hadn’t heard anything yet or that he’d asked again only receive the same answer as he had the first time. Dan was trying to hold onto the tiniest bit of hope that he would be there for him but he could feel it slowly drifting away.

Phil remained endlessly optimistic though, choosing instead to remind Dan that there was always hope and that he would remain hopeful up until the moment that that shift started. That was something that Dan loved about Phil, he was always completely hopeful and optimistic about the future.

Phil was the sort of guy who always had some sort of reassurance to give if you told him that you were concerned about something. He was a walking, talking jar of positive affirmations and Dan loved that about him. When he spoke, his words were infused with sunlight and his laugh was like a gentle breeze on a warm summers day, and Dan wanted nothing more than to just lie back and bask in his positivity.

Over the past week Dan’s dreams had been filled with different versions of the same fantasy; the moment that he landed on Earth and strode out of the space craft that he returned in. In every dream Phil’s height varied as did the way he carried himself, in some dreams he was confident with a straight back and a raised chin and in others he was more of a nervous mess, he was all fumbling movements and nervous laughter.

It was all obviously just dreams though, Dan knew that all too well. In reality, when Dan finally made it back to Earth, he wasn’t going to be confidently striding into Phil’s arms, he would be shaking and barely able to hold up his own body weight as the effects of gravity were finally upon him after months and months of floating about in zero gravity. An extraction team would be deployed to haul him out of the capsule and there would be dozens of people there, not just Phil. Of course, the only way that Phil would be there was if he was on the extraction team which was less likely than him working mission control during the return, even if they both liked to talk about it and fantasize about their meeting being in that moment.

There was a gym in the space station and astronauts were expected to work out and maintain their level of fitness. It wasn’t normal gym equipment obviously, as lifting weights in zero gravity wasn’t a challenge at all, and the chances of using a normal piece of equipment without floating off was very slim. So as much as Dan hated exercise it was sadly a necessary part of his daily routine and it was also the lesser evil in the long term.

If he didn’t exercise regularly and maintain his somewhat questionable physique then he would severely regret it as he would suffer from muscle wastage and would end up having to go through months of intense physiotherapy and probably an even more traumatising workout plan that would leave him more wrecked than his current one. It didn’t matter how much one of them tried to maintain their level of fitness and muscle though, there was always some degree of muscle wastage and the feeling of weakness on return to Earth.

So, Dan was perfectly aware that he would never be able to confidently stride towards Phil and dramatically pull him into a hug or a passionate kiss, the one which all of the cliché movies showed, where the main character met their love interest and literally swept them off their feet in an intense and overly dramatic kiss.

Dan had been having dreams of that kiss too, but he was trying not to focus on those too much as it would mean that he would end up getting lost in those fantasies. They were painfully pleasant.

So there Dan was, lying in his sleeping bag in zero gravity, wide awake at a ridiculously early hour because he was too excited and terrified to actually continue sleeping. Every night he had been imagining Phil’s voice in his mind, telling him all the amazing tales of the stars and the constellations and it had honestly helped him to sleep in a peaceful manner that he never usually experienced on the week leading up to the return journey.

It was like Phil’s voice was his drug and he was addicted to the soothing tenor of it. Something about Phil made him feel as though he was able to do anything. He supposed that that was probably why he was so eager for Phil to work the shift in which he returned to Earth; because he felt as though everything would be completely fine as long as Phil was there helping to guide things from mission control.

It was the fear that Phil wasn’t going to be there that was making Dan nervous because that meant that his entire mantra about how everything would be alright so long as Phil was there wouldn’t be completely true anymore which meant that he was looking at a journey home spent in a worried mess.

Dan had been packed and ready to go for days, only leaving out the bare minimum necessities to get him by. He had never been so excited to be finishing a mission.

He finally fumbled his way out of his sleeping bag and made his way towards the window, smiling softly when he realised that they were essentially directly above America at that precise moment in time. It was a testament to just how early it was for Dan as the glow of hundreds of thousands of streetlamps lit up the Earth. It was an amazing sight, one that Dan would have never believed could be true until he saw it with his own eyes. 

He was going to miss the view, and the feeling of knowing that he was essentially in a position where he was being given the opportunity to witness billions of lives all co-existing at once. Dan wasn’t stupid, he knew that there was no chance in hell that he could actually see anyone down on Earth and that the fact that he couldn’t even spot distinguishable landmarks and buildings was evidence enough of the impossibility of seeing individuals. There was still something about just knowing that there was life right there, so close yet so far away.

It was part of his daily routine by now, to go to the window when he had a moment of peace and stare down at the Earth. It was something that gave him the opportunity for a very introspective reflection, after all floating 400km away from billions of people who didn’t even know your name really helped to put things into perspective.

Dan could remember the first time he had travelled to the space station. He had spent the first few weeks after being informed that he had made the cut for the mission with his chin up and his back straight. He was proud of himself to the point where it could have been his downfall, if that had been this current mission then Thomas would have eaten him alive. Dan had been so overwhelmingly proud of himself for actually getting selected for the team that he was embarrassed to admit that he had even been a little cocky.

He had considered himself to be a success. He had been over confident and he could have been a danger to himself and to his team.

He hadn’t even been in the space station for twenty-four hours when he had a reality check. Something about staring down at the Earth through that small window was easily the fastest and biggest slap in the face that Dan had ever received.

Something about the stasis of being suspended in the air hundreds of kilometres away from Earth with technically no time zone was disconcerting. Sure, they based their time zone on that of mission control’s but when you were hurtling around the Earth at a fast speed and going through multiple sunrises and sunsets every day, it was all a bit moot, days and times blended together and didn’t seem to matter much.

He quickly realised that nobody really cared that he was up there. His family couldn’t be bothered to contact him, or pick up the phone when he tried to initiate contact, but it was fine as he kept telling himself that it was just the wrong time and the wrong day, they’d answer next time. Standing there and starting out taught him that he wasn’t special, or successful, he was small.

It was funny for a 6’4’’ man to feel small, and not the amusing type of funny, but somehow Dan did and he knew that other than the people he worked with and the intense space nerds, nobody knew his name. Nobody knew how badly he wanted to make a difference and to do something that mattered.

He was aware of how conceited that was just to think, never mind say, but he wanted to matter. He wanted to be known. Was that really so bad though, to want to make a difference in the world? He just wanted his life to actually mean something, rather than looking out into the vacuum of space and knowing that he would never be important and that he was just a tiny speck in the universe floating through life meaninglessly until death, was just depressing.

So, he had forced himself to grow up a little and gain some perspective. He was no different from anyone who was on Earth, they were all small specks when it truly came down to it. Everyone was trying to figure out what the point of their life was and make it matter. At the end of the day that was all people really wanted, wasn’t it? To matter.

Phil made Dan feel like he mattered. Phil made Dan feel as though the world as confusing and big as it was, made a little bit of sense. Suddenly the vastness of space felt a little more hopeful and a little less empty. It was strange how one person could do that, how just a few months’ worth of conversations was able to change Dan’s perspective on the world. Phil had made everything feel less limited and terrifying and Dan finally felt as though even if the only thing he did in his life was make Philip Lester laugh, then it was a life well spent.

That was a scary thought, maybe even scarier than the thought of travelling home. He just wanted to spend as much time as possible with Phil and get to know him in person. There was, of course, the risk that Phil wouldn’t want to take their relationship further, but Dan was tempted to throw caution to the wind and embrace his gut feeling that there was a chance that Phil might return his feelings.

Dan made his way to the communications room. It was going to be a bit bittersweet to say goodbye to that room as it was where Dan had first spoken to Phil and where he had slowly fallen in love with him.

All those phone calls and conversations spun around in Dan’s mind and it warmed his heart to reminisce on all their early conversations that were based on getting to know each other, back when it would have been so easy for them to stop talking before they built their friendship. Just a differing opinion or simple argument and one of them may have stopped talking.

“How long are you planning on staring at nothing for?”

“Why do you care?” Dan asked, not even bothering to look at Thomas. He was probably just hanging about in the doorway trying to cause trouble or something.

“I don’t, obviously,” he said but he didn’t leave like he usually would after making a stupid remark, Dan could feel him loitering behind him.

“Are you just going to stand there all day?” Dan asked.

“I was actually wanting to talk to you,” Thomas said.

“To me? Why?” Dan asked, finally turning around to glance at Thomas.

Thomas looked terrible, there was really no polite way to say it, his face was an ashen grey and suddenly he looked a lot older than he truly was, Dan frowned and hoped he wasn’t ill. He wasn’t sure what happened when someone got ill on the day of the return journey. Would they have to delay it or would there be even more of a push for them to go ahead and get home?

“Hey, uh, are you alright?” Dan asked, trying to fill the silence and encourage Thomas to talk.

“Yeah, man, just a nervous flier.” Thomas said, wringing his hands together as he hovered in the doorway.

“Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a nervous flier,” Dan admitted.

“Why is that?” Thomas asked sounding slightly offended, “because I’m an astronaut?”

“Well, yeah,” Dan said, “that and you always act so cocky, no offence.”

“You do realise that just because you say, ‘no offence’ doesn’t mean that I’m not going to take offence,” Thomas said, “I don’t blame you though, I have been a bit of a dick to you.”

Dan wanted to cock an eyebrow and sarcastically retort with a sassy ‘ _a bit_ ’ but he knew that there was no point. There was a reason that Thomas had come to speak to him and he wanted to know it rather than driving him away before he got to find out.

“Why did you come in here, Thomas?” Dan asked.

“I wanted to apologise,” Thomas said quietly, “for the shit I pulled out on that EVA, I fucked up and I didn’t even stop to consider that I was risking your life and my life.”

“Why did you do it?” Dan asked, that was the thing that he really needed to know. Why had Thomas decided to do something so blatantly stupid?

“I don’t even know, well I mean I think I know, but I’m not entirely sure,” Thomas said, “part of me was just hoping that I’d be able to do something to prove that I should have been the one in charge of the mission.”

“You untethered yourself and chased after a frigging toolbox,” Dan reminded him, “how the hell was catching a toolbox and nearly killing yourself in the process a good way to prove to anybody that you were the one who should have been in charge? There were plenty of spare toolboxes in here.”

“I know that it doesn’t make any sense, ok? I never thought it through, it was a complete spur of the moment decision and I completely regret it.” Thomas said. “I guess that’s what jealousy does to you.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Dan admitted, “I’ve heard about you, this isn’t your first mission either, you’ve got a lot of experience, why would you actually be jealous of me?”

“Because you're you,” Thomas said with a wave of his hand that implied that it should have been obvious, “you're a dorky, overgrown kid who was given power that should have been given to one of the more experienced members of this team.”

“This apology isn’t really working for me, you're doing more insulting than apologising.” Dan said.

“I didn’t mean that as a bad thing, I just meant that- shit, I don’t know what I meant,” Thomas admitted, “I just felt cheated that you were somehow more eligible as a leader to the higher ups than I was.”

“You do realise that they weren’t putting me in charge as a dig against you?” Dan said.

“Yeah, I know that but then you were all pally with that guy from mission control and I began to wonder whether you were only talking to him to try and wrangle more opportunities.” Thomas admitted.

“I would never do that, Phil isn’t just some ticket to a promotion.” Dan said, his eyebrows pulling together a in frustration.

“Yeah, yeah, I realise that now, you're way too lovey dovey to be using the guy,” Thomas said.

“I’m not lovey dovey.” Dan lied.

“You are, its actually pretty pathetic, you're so torn up about this guy who’ve you’ve never even met and it’s making you itch to go back to Earth, that’s a pretty crap way for an astronaut to think you know.”

“You’re an ass, Thomas.” Dan muttered.

“I know, and that won’t be changing anytime soon,” he must have noticed the Dan’s confusions because he continued on to elaborate, “look, I came in here to apologise for acting like a dick during the EVA. I should have kept my mouth shut and accepted that you were in charge and done my job like a professional, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be best pals with you.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be, but I was kinda hoping for a little civility.” Dan said.

“Yeah right, Howell, no chance,” Thomas said with a snort, “I just wanted to clear my conscience about the whole EVA misunderstanding before the trip home, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to cut you any slack. I still believe that I should have been given more power.”

“You’re an asshole, a confusing asshole.” Dan said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“So why now?” Dan asked. “Why is it now that you suddenly decide that you need to apologise for the past when you have no intentions of changing the future?”

“Let’s just say that I don’t leave anything to chance,” was all Dan received as a reply.

“No, let’s say more than that, is this to do with the journey home?”

“I told you I’m a nervous flier, I’m not letting karma kick my ass on the way home.”

“You’re superstitious?”

“No, I’m careful and I know that I would rather suck up my pride and admit that I was an ass than let karma decide that it’s time for me to pay my dues on the way home.”

“Wouldn’t that defeat the point a bit? I mean, me and Mari would also be on that flight home, so karma would be kicking our arses too.” Dan said.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure that you must have done something at some point to deserve an ass whooping from karma.” Thomas decided.

“Damn, it’s no wonder you’re a nervous flier,” Dan said, not willing to admit that he was also a nervous flier too, it wasn’t like he was a nervous flier per se. No, he was more nervous about the fact that it was a journey from space to Earth, he would think nothing about a flight from Australia to the UK.

“Look, I just wanted to say my piece and I’ve said it now.” Thomas said.

“I don’t get you,” Dan admitted.

“You don’t have to ‘get me’, Howell,” Thomas said with a shrug, “we’re not friends and I don’t like you.”

“you're a charmer.” Dan said with a scoff as he turned away to look out the window again.

It made sense in a twisted, convoluted way, Thomas was driven by the need to be the best in all possible situations and whenever he felt weak or vulnerable in any way then he was more likely to lash out and try to make others feel weaker in order to prevent them from looking too closely and seeing that he actually was feeling insecure.

When Dan turned to look back at Thomas he was gone, the door way was empty and for a moment Dan considered whether he had hallucinated the entire situation before deciding that there was no way in hell he could hallucinate that sort of thing.

The day dragged by with Dan hoping and praying that the phone would ring and Phil would announce that they had let him on the shift and that he would be there to guide him through the journey home, but with every minute that passed his hopes were fading more and more.

He honestly needed to take a step back and realise that this wasn’t a romance novel or a sappy movie, this was real life, and in real life things were completely different. There was no miraculous last-minute decision to let the girl run to meet the guy in a passionate kiss at the landing site. Also, why was it always a girl running to meet the guy? Why wasn’t it a guy running to meet the guy? Or a girl running to meet the girl? Also, when it was the girl running to meet the guy, why was it the _girl running to meet the guy?_ Why didn’t the guy do the running for once?

Dan could get caught up in the semantics of it for hours on end but at the end of the day there was no getting around the fact that real life sucked and that there weren’t any miracles hidden around corners, or sympathetic bosses willing to sacrifice their yearly statistics and perfect reports to add an extra person to a shift where they weren’t even required in the first place.

The chances of Phil being there were slim to none and the thought of him being there had been a large part of Dan’s comfort over the past few days for Dan, especially as he had been so anxious about the return journey. It was amazing how just the thought of Phil being there was so reassuring to Dan that he literally felt physically more at ease and as though he was safer. Which was insane as there was nothing about a person’s presence that guaranteed anyone’s safety.

“Last minute checks everyone, make them count,” Thomas announced, as they prepared themselves for the countdown of the last hour before it was time for them to actually depart the station.

“Hey, Thomas, can we please, uh, talk about what happened earlier?” Dan asked quietly, casting a quick eye over Mari to make sure that she was suitably occupied and not eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Nothing happened earlier,” Thomas said, “you and I talked and I apologised for being a dick. There isn’t anything to discuss.”

“I don’t know, maybe there is, it was a bit out of the blue how you just decided to suddenly apologise,” Dan said.

“Look, Howell, I did it because it was the right thing to do, there is nothing else to say,” and just like that the conversation was over.

Dan was left essentially to himself as everyone went about their final checks and he was kind of disappointed that they were such an ineffective team. He couldn’t wait to finally be home and part of a larger more communicative team of people.

Honestly there was so much that Dan was itching to have. Proper home cooked meals were high up there on the list, none of the pre-packaged and dried out shite that he had been suffering through throughout the entire trip. 

Mostly Phil. He was looking forward to finally hugging the stupid dork that he had grown to love so much.

Re-entry wasn’t an easy task, there were a lot of complex calculations and factors to take into account to ensure a safe return. Once the spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere of Earth forces such as gravity would attempt to act upon it and drag it down to the Earth, causing a dangerously fast landing that would essentially end in death if not for the opposing force of friction.

Dan could feel the nerves spinning in his stomach as the clock was counting own to the time of their return, the image of Phil flitted through his mind and he once again thought about the impossible possibility of Phil being there when he landed.

The return journey was less than three and a half hours which had surprised Dan back when he was still in his early days of training, but he guessed that it made sense as the space station was only 400km above Earth. Another thing that Dan had never known about returning to Earth before becoming an astronaut was that when he landed on Earth, he wouldn’t be returning to America straight away, he would actually be landing in Kazakhstan and then following extraction and a quick medical check over he would be on a plane back to America. To Phil. Maybe he could change his daydreams to Phil meeting him off that flight.

It wasn’t as hopelessly romantic in his mind but it was still better than waiting ages to see him.

Dan tugged nervously at the front of his spacesuit as he stared at the small pod that the three of them would climb into for the journey home. The spacecraft that they would return home in was called a Soyuz. The Soyuz was a Russian spacecraft and consisted of two parts; the Soyuz capsule and the Soyuz rocket.

Before Dan knew it, he was seated between Mari and Thomas and anxiously awaiting the order to untether from the space station. This was it, he wouldn’t be stepping in the space station again unless he was on another mission, and with the uncertainty of the future that possibility was a giant question mark in his mind. There were so many variables to consider. One thing he did know though, was that he would never say that he would never return to space. It was like a hunger inside of him. Every time he left Earth that hunger was sated but eventually it always came back. He had the urge to explore and learn the intricacies of the universe and due to that he knew that he would never be content with staying on Earth forever.

The waiting for the command to untether was almost killing Dan, normally he would fill the silence with idle chatter, maybe ask his fellow team members what they were looking forward to when they made it back to Earth but the stony silence from Mari and the sharp warning glances from Thomas soon prevented him from doing that. It was almost as though Thomas was afraid of Dan mentioning their earlier conversation.

“This is mission control, do you copy?” He was disappointed to hear a gruff woman’s voice rather than the familiar voice of Phil.

“This is Commander Howell, we copy.” Dan said.

“Commander Howell, please proceed to open the hooks.”

The hooks were what kept the Soyuz attached to the International Space Station and once they were opened the Soyuz began travelled at a very gentle ten centimetres per second and so that’s exactly what happened when Dan followed the command and keyed it in to the control panel.

“Very good, we have a visual,” the woman from mission control said.

The initial detach always felt longer than it really was to Dan, so when he was given the command to fire the thrusters he was relieved.

The thrusters were only fired for fifteen seconds and only after the Soyuz was twenty metres away from the space station. Dan could feel a bead of sweat running down the back of his neck. Everything had to be precise in order to ensure that the Soyuz landed safely.

“Approaching distance of nineteen kilometres from the space station, please prepare to fire engines.”

Dan was ready to key in the code as soon as the order was confirmed.

“Distance of nineteen kilometres reached, fire engines.”

“Roger that,” Dan said as he followed through.

It was customary for the Soyuz to fire the engines once it was nineteen kilometres away from the space station, this was called its main de-orbit burn and lasted for exactly four minutes and twenty-one seconds. The crew were sat in a part of the Soyuz called the descent module which separates from the orbital module during this stage. The orbital module was then lost forever, it burned up in the atmosphere.

Dan waited until it was time to shut off the engines, and then after doing so he leaned back and relaxed in his seat. He could take a breath now, things were out of his control for a little while, when they were fifteen minutes away from landing he would have to deploy the drogue parachute but he had time.

There were two parachutes that helped to slow their speed, deployed at separate times. After this six engines on the underside of the capsule were fired up to cushion the impact of the landing. It all sounded so simple but timing was key. If they left things even just a little bit too late then there was the risk of being unable to slow down in time causing potential injury.

The biggest challenge was gravity, Dan could already feel the beginnings of its effects causing his head and arms to feel heavy. It was like his limbs were slowly solidifying into lead or stone, and Dan was thankful for the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins causing him to have the strength to move his lead-like arms.

“You guys still awake in there?” A chirpy voice asked, “we’re fast approaching the landing site, you’ll be safely on Earth in twenty minutes so look sharp.”

“We’re awake,” Dan confirmed, amused by the joke, it would be next to impossible to sleep in the capsule as it was constantly shuddering and jerking, not to mention that parts of it literally had to break away earlier. Dan would love to meet a person who was capable of sleeping through that sort of noise and fear.

“Alright then,” the chirpy girl said after a short break and Dan wondered where the other girl had gone briefly, “Fifteen minutes until landing, please deploy the drogue parachute.”

Dan did as he was told and deployed the drogue parachute which slowed their speed with a noticeable jerk from two hundred and thirty metres per second to eighty metres per second. It was almost a third of their previous speed.

Dan could feel the nerves slowly start to ease up as he realised that he would actually be on the Earth in a matter of minutes. Gone were the days of staring at the Earth and counting the days until it was time to return, he wouldn’t have to sit by the phone hoping that Phil would hurry up and call him. Now he would be able to call Phil whenever he wanted to and he would be able to meet up with him in person, he just couldn’t wait, he was so excited for this next chapter of his life.

When the second parachute was deployed, Dan felt the shift as the Soyuz righted itself so that the engines were on the bottom, and it slowed to just seven metres per second. The ground was fast approaching and Dan flicked on the engines to slow them further and cushion the blow of the landing.

There was a moment of complete stillness, everything was silent except for the ragged breathing of the three astronauts and the creaking of the Soyuz as it settled. Dan was home. Well, he wasn’t quite home yet, he was on the Kazakh steppe but it was a damn sight closer to home than he had been before.

Everything felt heavy and Dan wasn’t sure that he would be able to lift them if he wanted to. He glanced at the two astronauts either side of him and was mildly surprised to see that Mari looked as though she had just found the secret to eternal peace and Thomas was actually smiling, not a sarcastic smile either, it was a full blown, happy as fuck grin.

He wasn’t sure how long the pause lasted, they could have been sitting there basking in their safe return or hours and Dan wouldn’t have been any the wiser. He was just so content to actually be on solid ground that he would have sat there for a few days without moving if given the chance to.

Not before too long Dan heard the sound of multiple voices and hordes of footsteps approaching them. The hatch was cracked open and sunlight poured in, it wasn’t a warm sun though it was a cold sun with chilly, biting winds and Dan shivered. He embraced the shiver though, after spending so much time in the carefully regulated temperatures of the space station it was a pleasant surprise to actually feel something other than just fine. It was a reminder that the Earth was unpredictable and had varying extremes of temperature. Dan didn’t think that he would miss feeling cold but here he was.

“How you doing Commander Howell?” One of the people asked as multiple hands reached in and started to unclip him from his seat.

While technically both Dan and Thomas were commanders, Dan had the lead on this mission and was technically _the_ Commander. It was tradition for the commander of the mission to be removed from the capsule first.

“I’m alright,” Dan said, he was more than alright, he was great, but at the same time he felt heavy and his head was fuzzy but he wasn’t complaining because he was safe.

“We’re going to life him on three, ready? One, two and three.”

Dan felt himself being hauled up and out of his little capsule into the world. Grassy plains surrounded them in every direction and Dan was struck by just how many people had actually turned up to see their return.

“Sit him on the edge,” someone said, “right there, on the edge.”

It was strange knowing that people were physically moving you and talking about you but everything was so overwhelming that Dan couldn’t bring himself to really care that much. His head was spinning and if there was anything in his stomach he was sure that it would try to rebel. He was really glad as he wasn’t too keen on vomiting on all the people who were there to help him.

“How you doing? Any nausea?”

“A little,” Dan said, “nothing too bad.”

“We’re ready for him when you are, slide him down.” A voice from somewhere else said.

Dan was lifted over the edge of the capsule and slid down into the hands of four men. One for each of his limbs and he was essentially being carried in a sitting position to a camping chair where he was gently placed before being wrapped up in blankets.

“Is there anything that you need?” someone asked him.

“Maybe some water?” Dan asked, “please?”

“We’ll get that for you,” he was promised.

“Get his observations.”

A few people crowded him and removed his gloves, rolling up the sleeves of his spacesuit to his elbows. A sats probe was placed on his finger and a blood pressure cuff around his arm. All Dan could do was sit there and wait.

“Heart rate is slightly elevated and blood pressure is a bit low but that’s to be expected after your journey.” Someone told him.

Dan could hear the shutters of cameras going off and people chatting, there was just so much going on it was overwhelming. He just needed some silence and space. Wasn’t that ironic he needed space?

He couldn’t lift his arms, they were too heavy, he barely felt as though he had the energy to talk and after being in solitude for so long being around this volume of people was strange and disorientating.

The bottle of water that he had requested was held out in front of Dan but he could barely gather the strength to even consider reaching out for it, he looked up to apologise and say that he had changed his mind or something to that effect when he froze.

He felt like his mind short-circuited as he was staring directly into a pair of greeny-bluey-yellow eyes that he had only seen in a digital polaroid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is late, it was a really tricky chapter to write and i had to do a LOT of research on the journey home. 
> 
> Hopefully you guys enjoyed it and you can come and yell at me about the chapter ending on tumblr @asteroidphil


	9. Phil

The world stood still for a moment and Dan could have sworn that the flurry of people around him had frozen and that the clicking of the photographers’ cameras had all disappeared into nothingness, it was almost as though he was sitting in a camping chair in the middle of nowhere with just one other person. It was virtually unbelievable to think that Phil was in front of him, holding out a bottle of water as though welcoming back a person whom he’d never met but had spoken to for months was a common thing for him to do. Maybe it was, Dan wasn’t sure as he had never thought to ask that question.

Everything about Phil was perfect to Dan, from the way his eyes glinted and appeared to be three different colours in the sunlight to the way that he grinned causing one corner of his mouth to raise and his eyes to crinkle with laughter lines showing years of happiness and joy, Dan found him to be like a magnet that was drawing him in.

“Hey, Dan,” The words were so painfully familiar and the sound of that thick, deep northern accent pulled Dan from his stupor.

He tried to raise his arms to pull Phil into a hug but they were so slow at moving and unbelievably heavy, he didn’t think he was going to manage but fortunately Phil, as usual, knew what was on his mind. Before Dan knew what was happening Phil’s arms were around his back and his face was buried in Dan’s neck. He finally managed to find enough strength to lift his arms and rest them on Phil’s back. It wasn’t the most comfortable hug for either of them, Phil was stooped over so he could hug Dan who was sitting in a camp chair and Dan’s arms were sore with the effort of holding them up but neither of them cared.

It was perfect, Dan breathed in the scent of Phil and whilst he couldn’t put a name on the exact scent he knew that Phil smelled of reassurance and of home. It was a comforting scent and Dan would have quite happily stayed in that position all year.

“I missed you,” Dan whispered, just for Phil to hear.

“I’m so glad you made it home safely.” Dan could feel the words being spoken against his neck.

It was amusing in an odd sense because he usually hated it when there was anything against his neck, it would normally make his entire body shudder and he would try to get as far away from it as possible but as Phil’s breath and hair tickled his neck he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was so overwhelmed with happiness that he would have let a stranger run a feather up and down the back of his neck for hours on end without battling an eyelid.

Neither of them noticed the bottle of water that was slowly emptying onto the grass where it had been haphazardly thrown, it wasn’t important anymore.

“How did you manage this?” Dan asked, still unable to believe that Phil was right there in his arms, somehow something in the world had decided to turn in Dan’s favour for once.

Dan wasn’t sure how long the hug lasted but he did know that when it was time for Phil to pull away it seemed like it was too soon. Dan moved to look up at Phil and was suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness and nausea that had him truly concerned that he might throw up all over Phil and scare him away forever.

“Dan? Dan are you alright?”

“Hmm, m’fine,” Dan mumbled, not wanting to talk too much in case it caused the nausea to worsen to a point where Dan may actually vomit all over Phil.

“Slow, deep breaths, Dan,” Phil said in an understanding tone, “it’s just because you’re getting used to gravity again, it’ll pass.”

Dan knew that, he knew that it was only temporary and that he was suffering from EMS, or Entry Motion Sickness, but it didn’t make him feel any better. EMS typically lasted a few hours following return to Earth and with it Dan could be looking forward to a myriad of unpleasant symptoms mostly revolving around feeling incredibly sick and dizzy.

“I’m ok, honestly,” Dan said through heavy lips and a tongue that felt almost like it could have weighed a couple of tonnes. He knew that he was talking strangely but he couldn’t stop it.

It was a lesser known fact that when astronauts spent a long time in space they adjusted and learned to speak in a different way because their tongues were weightless. So now that Dan was finally home, he would have to wait a few hours to get used to talking again, for a temporary time his words would be awkwardly pronounced and his tongue would feel too heavy in his mouth causing some words to come out with a slight lisp. It should only last a few hours though, so Dan wasn’t too concerned or embarrassed by it.

“You’re doing great, just let yourself adjust slowly.”  Phil said, his voice soothing Dan in ways that seemed impossible.

“You’re taller than I thought you’d be,” Dan mumbled, completely out of the blue, “I’m glad.”

“You’re an idiot,” Phil said fondly.

“Says you, you spoon,” Dan said trying to roll his eyes and feeling a wave of nausea at the pitiful attempt.

“You can insult me all you want in a few hours’ time, just let your body get used to the fact that you're living in gravity again, no more doing ten backflips in a row.” Phil said.

“You don’t know that I did that.” Dan said defensively.

“Dan, all astronauts spend some of their time spinning in circles, it’s practically a rite of passage.” Phil said, obviously not buying into Dan’s bullshit.

“Alright, alright, maybe it’s true that I did spend a little bit of time doing tricks in zero gravity, in my defence though, it was fun.”

“Naturally, there’s a reason why people pay to go into anti-gravity chambers.” Phil said.

Dan was amazed by how easy it was to talk to Phil in person, it was almost like nothing had changed, like Dan was still floating up in space talking to Phil on the phone and wondering what the hell it would be like to actually meet him in person, and Phil was a dream that kept him going on the days when he felt the loneliest.

He had expected things to be a bit awkward at first as they would have to get used to the fact that they were actually able to speak face to face, but he was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how natural it felt to be near him.

“How is everything going?” Dan asked, he had been keeping his head as still as possible as to prevent further feelings of nausea but that meant that his back was to the Soyuz shuttle and he couldn’t see what was going on.

“Mari is out, they’re just carrying her over now, and they’ve already started to work on lifting Thomas out.” Phil said, glancing over Dan’s shoulder to see what was happening.

“That’s good,” Dan murmured tiredly.

“Hey, just think,” Phil said gently as he nudged Dan’s shoulder, “in a few days’ time we’ll be back in America and we can do all sorts of fun things.”

“Like what?” Dan asked.

“That’s a surprise, Dan, I’m not going to tell you and ruin most of the fun.” Phil teased.

“I’ve just travelled to Earth, you should be a bit more lenient,” Dan said.

“That may have convinced someone else, but I know you and I know that you will appreciate all the fun little trips I have planned more if it’s a surprise on the day.” Phil said.

Dan couldn’t argue with that, it was true, even though he was the sort of person who nagged and nagged to try and find out information about what people had planned but then when it came down to it the surprise was always so much better.

“These things that you have planned for us, what do they involve?” Dan asked, “because if you’re planning on taking me rock climbing or anything like that then I’m going to have to pass. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not even able to walk right now.”

“Don’t worry,” Phil said with a laugh that was so painfully familiar but also completely new as Dan was only just learning that Phil’s tongue poked out between his teeth when he laughed like that, “I wouldn’t even be able to rock climb so I wouldn’t ever ask you to do it, anyways you’ll be walking in a few hours there’s no need to be so melodramatic.”

“Melodramatic, me? There’s no way.” Dan said, with a faux gasp of shock.

“Dan, you are one of the most extra guys that I have ever met.” Phil stated.

“Oh ‘extra’? someone’s been spending a lot of time on the internet lately.” Dan joked, he wasn’t even able to feel offended because he was too focussed on the fact that they could actually say that they had met each other now. It was no longer the person that he had been speaking to for months but now it was the guy that he had actually met.

“Shut up, I had to pass the time on the flight over here somehow.” Phil said.

“No judgement here, it’s just a bit odd to hear it coming from you of all people.” Dan admitted.

“What if I said ‘thicc’?”

“Stop, just please stop, I haven’t even been back on Earth for an hour and you're already making me want to launch myself back into space.” Dan said.

“You’d have to stand up first, Daniel.” Phil joked.

“if I could move my arms effectively, I would punch you.” Dan promised.

“Liar, you love me really.”

Dan was beyond tempted to just turn around tell Phil exactly how much he loved him, how much he had been itching to get home just so that they could finally meet, but he was scared. It wasn’t really the sort of thing that you just admitted spontaneously in front of a crowd of hundreds of people and live recording cameras. Dan had forgotten about those cameras when he had hugged Phil and maybe if he had thought about it he would have been embarrassed but in retrospect he was grateful that some nerd would probably upload the moment to YouTube so that Dan would be able to relieve it over and over again.

Fortunately, he was saved from answering by the commotion of Mari being plonked into the chair a couple of feet away from Dan, people swarmed around her checking her observations and making sure that she was alright.

“They’re starting to lift Thomas out now.” Phil informed him.

Dan was grateful for the update and the subject change because he wasn’t ready to admit anything yet, and the fact that Phil had travelled all this way just to be there for Dan when he landed was touching in a way that Dan hadn’t prepared himself for.

“Hey, how did you even make it here?” Dan asked, “I thought that there was pretty much no chance.”

“I’m not working,” Phil said, “I just got the go ahead to come along and assist with the return.”

“Assist?” Dan asked, “I don’t understand, is that their way of saying that you could join the shift but you aren’t getting paid anything for it?”

“Essentially, although I did get free travel and accommodation for the duration of the trip.” Phil said.

“The duration? Aren’t we going home tomorrow?” Dan asking in amusement.

“Well, yes, but I get a night in a five-star hotel, although the chances are I’ll probably come to the hospital with you and spend most of the night there.” Phil said with a shrug.

“No way, you can’t miss out on a night in an amazing hotel for me to sleep off a little bit of nausea and low blood pressure in a hospital bed.” Dan insisted.

“It’s non-negotiable,” Phil said, “there is no way I’m going to let you stay in a hospital in a strange country without anyone to talk to and make you suffer through bad food.”

“That’s actually not true you know?” Dan said, “hospital food has a pretty bad rep but a lot of the food that I’ve tried ended up being pretty decent.”

“You have to say that, you're the one who has to eat it,” Phil said, “what if they hear you talking badly about their food and decide to spike it with laxatives?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly what they intend to do.” Dan said sarcastically, briefly glancing to his other side to see the crew putting Thomas into the final camping chair.

“Hey, it’s better to be safe than sorry, I mean the ambulance crews are already here so you never know they might actually pass on inside information to the team that is charge of your care.” Phil said with a conspiring waggle of his eyebrows that was so comical that Dan found himself snickering in a way that made his head spin.

“Don’t make me laugh,” he protested, “I’m too light headed for this.”

“Look alive, there’s a billion cameras on you.” Phil teased.

“Oh god, please don’t remind me.” Dan said with a groan, “I look like a trashcan and it’s going to be immortalised forever on the internet.”

“You’ve just travelled back to the Earth from space, Dan, I don’t think people care how you look.” Phil said, “besides, I think that you look pretty damn good right now.”

Dan felt his entire face go bright red and he hoped that Phil would think that it was just because he was feeling the effects of gravity but who was he kidding? Everyone knew that the fluid and blood volume rushed to the lower half of an astronaut’s body following re-entry, it was why most astronauts experienced light headedness and low blood pressure.

It was all due to baroreceptors, which control the valves within the circulatory system, being ignored due the astronaut’s time in zero gravity which meant that when the astronaut returned to Earth the system wasn’t ready to work like it previously had so a good proportion of the blood volume ended up flowing to the lower half of the body and caused a shortage in the head and upper body.

It occurred to Dan that he had yet to answer Phil, but fortunately he was saved from having to by a flood of reporters surging forward to try and question them on their return now that they were all sitting in their little camping chairs.

Luckily for them there was security there to stop the reporters from getting too close but Dan felt his heartrate increase ever so slightly as he thought about the fact that they could literally trample him and he wouldn’t have the strength to run away.

“How did it feel to travel home?”

“What was it like to spend so much time in space?”

“How are you feeling?”

“What are you planning on doing now that you're home?”

“What do your families think of your career?”

It was all so completely insane and overwhelming and Dan just wished that they would go away and give him some space. Technically he had plenty of space and there was a good couple of hundred feet between them but they were still too close for comfort.

“It’s alright, no one expects you to answer,” Phil reminded him, “they do this every single time someone returns and they never get any answers, I don’t even know why they bother to turn up anymore.”

“They need the footage,” Dan said, closing his eyes again as that seemed to help with the spinning inside his mind, technically he needed to focus on a still object but that was virtually impossible with all the people who were walking around and waving various pieces of equipment.

“It’s alright, they’re just checking everyone over and getting a few things sorted and we’ll be on our way.” Phil said reassuringly as though he could sense Dan’s growing anxiety about the situation he was in.

To be fair he probably could, it wouldn’t be unusual for Dan to be feeling stressed about the amount of people surrounding him after literally spending the better part of a year in a place that was completely secluded from the Earth and had only three humans on it, one of which was actually Dan.

“Phil, I uh,” Dan paused for a second struggling to get the words he needed out, “when I get in the ambulance to, um, go to the hospital for the night would you maybe want to kind of come with me?”

“You’re asking me to ride in the ambulance with you?” Phil asked as if trying to clarify what Dan’s convoluted sentence was.

“If you want to, I mean.” Dan said.

“Dan, relax, I travelled all this way to meet you from the Soyuz and I’ve already said that I’m spending the night there, so of course I want to travel to the hospital with you. You're not going to be able to get rid of me that quickly.” Phil said.

“I really appreciate all of this.” Dan said earnestly.

“It’s what friends do for each other,” Phil replied with a smile.

Dan’s heart dropped with an audible thud, ‘it’s what friends do for each other’ that was exactly like walking up to a child and punching them in the face. Alright, maybe it wasn’t the same thing at all, but Dan felt like a child who had just been punched. Was that a weird comparison? Probably, but it felt accurate to Dan.

Phil calling himself Dan’s friend was one of the most painful things that Dan had ever felt, it was as if someone had noted down his dreams of falling into Phil’s arms and decided to try their best to ensure that it was impossible.

No, that wasn’t true, people who loved each other could be friends too. In fact, Dan was counting on it because he loved Phil and they were friends, so why should Dan feel upset about Phil stating a fact? It was true, they were friends and Dan was in love with his friend. It was just a painful piece of information about his life and even though he kept repeating it to himself it wasn’t any easier to accept.

“Thank you,” Dan said.

“I couldn’t let you travel there alone, not after I came all this way just to see you.” Phil said.

“I really appreciate it, meeting you has been the best part of this entire mission.” Dan said.

“Meeting you made moving to America worth it,” Phil replied, “top that one.”

“Meeting you made eating pre-packaged, foil food worth it,”

“Meeting you made all the late nights worth it,”

“Meeting you made me happier than I’ve ever felt before,” Dan said quietly.

“I can’t top that one, but I can tell you that I feel exactly the same way,” Phil said, “there’s something about you, Dan, that makes everything feel easy and possible, flying to the moon? Entirely possible as long as I’m with you.”

“I think it’s our job that makes that one possible,” Dan said with a grin.

“No, no its not, because there is no way that I would even consider going to the moon unless you were by my side, and even then, it’s a bit risky so I’m not sure we should attempt it.” Phil said.

“Only you could say that going to the moon is a bit risky,” Dan said with a quiet laugh, “I swear, one day you’ll be standing on a brand new planet and you’ll turn around and say ‘hey Dan, this is a little dangerous, why don’t we go home?’”

“That’s not true,” Phil paused for a second, “alright, maybe it’s possible but in my defence, I work mission control. I’m used to being behind the scenes where I can see exactly what’s going on everywhere on the spacecraft and I know that calculations and the potential risks.”

“You're a control freak,” Dan said.

“I’m not a control freak, I’m just a little bit reliant on surety.” Phil said defensively.

Dan was about to reply when he was interrupted by a man in a paramedic uniform.

“Commander Howell, we’re ready for you, would you like assistance to the van?” he asked, speaking with almost perfect, thickly accented English.

“Please, I’ll try to do as much as I can, but I won’t manage completely on my own,” Dan said, “oh, and just calling me Dan is fine, preferable even.”

“Yes, Dan, sir,” the man said, before turning away slightly and yelling, “I need a couple of people to help get the commander to the van!”

It was embarrassing to Dan to see a flurry of people running forwards to help, he knew that it wasn’t him that they were eager to help, it was the idea of him being an astronaut, but he was still humbled and embarrassed by it a little bit.

“I’ll get this side,” Phil said to a person who was tugging impatiently at Dan’s left arm, “thank you for the offer.”

The initial movement to Dan’s feet sent a spiralling wave of nausea through him, causing his stomach to feel like it was churning and flipping over, he was aware that most of his weight was on Phil and a stranger and he could feel the paramedic’s hands on his waist trying to steady him as much as possible.

“How you doing?” Phil asked quietly.

“M’fine,” Dan said, “I can feel a little more of my arms, well not feel them more but move them a little easier.”

“That’s good, now try to take a little more of your weight on your legs,” the paramedic instructed.

Dan tried his best to follow orders and his knees shook under the weight of his body but he was managing to support himself, or at least a decent proportion of his weight.

“You’ve got that funny astronaut walk,” Phil whispered in his ear with a breathy giggle that seemed to travel right through Dan.

“You’re lucky I’m walking at all, you could have been carrying me to the ambulance.” Dan said.

“I wouldn’t have complained about that,” Phil said, “it would have been the highlight of my day.”

“Shut up, you Spork,” Dan laughed, “there’s no way that you would even manage to carry me a foot never mind all the way over there.”

“I’d manage, you just don’t believe me because you’re feeling the effects of gravity.” Phil said.

“Gravity isn’t so bad if it means that I can talk to you whenever I want to.” Dan said and out of the corner of his eye he saw Phil’s cheeks lift as he smiled.

Dan was finally in the ambulance after a difficult short walk in which he had spent clinging to Phil and a stranger while trying his best not to throw up all over them, especially as he was pretty dependent on them to walk.

 Dan lay on the gurney patiently as he was strapped on and monitoring equipment was connected, the world was still spinning but he could feel it slowly beginning to become more manageable. It was a subtle reminder that this feeling was temporary and that it wouldn’t last forever, eventually with time he would return to normal and almost forget the way that he felt when he returned.

He had a lot to look forward to in the next few days, there would be a lot of cardiovascular tests to ensure that his circulation was returning to normal as it was common for there to be all sorts of issues, his heart was no longer used to pumping blood back up his body so it would be normal for him to have low blood pressure and feelings of light headedness. Fortunately, he would be able to wear a G-suit underneath his clothes for the first few days, a G-suit was a suit which prevented the blood from pooling in the lower half of a person’s body, it was commonly used by pilots to prevent them from passing out g-LOC, g-induced loss of consciousness.

He would also have to sit down for a lot of daily tasks, such as showering, if he wanted a shower then he would end up sitting in the bath for it because he wouldn’t have the strength to hold himself up for the entire duration of the shower. Even the first press conference that he went to, he would be offered a seat and he would be expected to take it. NASA had adopted the custom of having astronauts sit down for press conferences after an incident in 2011 when an astronaut named Heidemarie Stefanyshym-Piper returned from Shuttle Mission STS-115 and was doing a press conference when they ended up passing out. It had caused a lot of panic at the time but it had been announced that it was just a temporary problem caused by the fact that the astronaut was still readjusting to gravity, but ever since then it had become customary for astronauts to sit down at the initial press conferences.

A priority for Dan within the first few days was to ensure that he was able to maintain his balance, ensure that blood flow was working effectively and ensure that his cardiovascular system was working as it should.

He would undergo several standard tests such as spending time on a neurovestibular platform test which was a platform that was tilted in various directions and hooked up to monitors that recorded how well he was doing, it was safe as he would also be strapped into a harness that would ensure that he didn’t fall.

It was important that Dan was able to maintain his balance effectively as when astronauts were in space they tended to lose, on average, 1.5% of their bone mass per month that they spent in zero gravity, which meant that it ended up being a fairly significant amount of bone mass loss when it came to long term space travel. The greatest loss of bone mass occurred in the pelvis and the thighs which meant that a fall could easily result in a fractured hip. Fortunately for the majority of astronauts who undertook long term space flight, their bone density returned to its normal value anytime between six months and three years following return to Earth. Even then, those who didn’t find their bone density back at normal values were reported to be within 5% of their pre-flight range meaning that the risk of fracture would decrease over time and Dan would be able to do more.

Dan was lucky in the sense that it shouldn’t be such a long recovery time as he had taken the time to make use of the exercise machines which would have helped him to maintain some of his muscle mass and bone density. He would also be taking part in a rigorous physical therapy programme now that he was home. Dan was young, so the outlook for his recovery was pretty optimistic.

In addition to the balance test, Dan would also be getting MRI scans and Optical Coherence Tomography scans to determine whether his eyesight had been impacted by his adventures as the lens in his eyes may have swollen a little causing vision issues.

Now that he was back on Earth he would be spending the first three weeks at the Houston Space Centre undergoing intensive tests and therapy, they would last for a couple of hours and he would have to do them every day, some of the tests were scientific experiments and would mean that they could take information from Dan and use it to ensure space travel was safer for future astronauts.

Even though he would be spending three weeks there he couldn’t bring himself to get upset about it as they would be able to monitor him for symptoms of ERS, or Earth Re-adaption Syndrome, signs included orthostatic intolerance, reduced muscular strength, reduced bone strength, reduced coordination, neurovestibular disturbances and problems with locomotion. ERS was temporary but ended up lasting for six weeks to six months.

Dan wasn’t looking forward to a potential six months of accidently knocking things over or being unable to lift heavy objects as easily as he once would have been able to, but it was worth it to have been able to do the job that he did and experience the things that he had seen.

It was funny in an ironic sense, but since he had landed he had found himself staring up into the sky as if trying to see the stars, he had known that it was impossible in the daylight but even as he lay there in the ambulance he was staring out the tiny windows and trying to look for stars amongst the clear blue sky and the few fluffy clouds. Most of his time in space was spent staring back at Earth and looking on in awe at how vibrant and still it was, but now that he was on Earth he wanted to look at the stars and the secrets that they held within them.

He almost wanted to turn around and go back to the International Space Station, after all the time that he had spent up there and complaining about the tight quarters and the lack of people to talk to, he missed it, the Earth suddenly seemed too large and too crowded, there was so many people and he didn’t know how anyone could find the space to breathe amongst all the commotion.

But there was Phil.

Dan glanced at the man sitting patiently beside him, he was looking at Dan softly and it was almost as if he knew exactly what was going through Dan’s mind. Those beautiful eyes were even more spectacular in person and seemed to contain the secret to calming Dan’s fears and anxieties. It was all suddenly so much simpler.

The next few weeks were going to be unbelievably difficult, both physically and emotionally but somehow Dan knew that Phil was going to be right there beside him and he wouldn’t be easily frightened away. It was amazing how reassuring the idea of Phil being beside him was. It felt like Dan could do anything, he felt invincible. He had travelled to space and somehow met an amazing person while he had been up there, what were the chances of that? Surely, if he was that fortunate then he would be able to make it through the next few months with Phil by his side.

Despite the obstacles that lay in their way, Dan had never been more hopeful in all his life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh we're nearly there!!! theres only one more chapter left, i'm emotional <3 i hope you enjoyed this, i've never researched so much for a fic before!
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr @asteroidphil ily guys sm <3333


	10. Stargazing

“Dan, come on, hurry up,” Phil called from his place which was about a hundred metres in front of Dan.

Dan rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop the fond smile from lifting his cheeks, since the landing he had come on ‘leaps and bounds’, according to the medical staff at the space station, and was readjusting nicely not that that meant that he was back to normal. No, he was still recovering from his little venture into space, but he found that he was managing to walk longer distances and he was feeling less out of breath when walking. That only really applied to walking on the flat though, which was evidence by the fact that he was currently huffing and puffing like the wolf from the Three Little Pigs children’s story due to the hill that Phil was making him climb.

Phil had to keep stopping so that he could wait for Dan to catch up and it was amusing to Dan, most people would probably get annoyed at him for racing ahead but Dan thought it was adorable, it was proof that he was excited about whatever he had planned for them to do.

Dan was curious about what Phil could be planning as the sun was already dipping low causing the sky to look a stunning pink that bended seamlessly into a slowly darkening blue, there wasn’t a single cloud in sight and the air around them was warm and still. It was peaceful and Dan would be loving it if it wasn’t for the fact that he was trekking up a hill and was probably sweating more than humanely possible.

“Dan, Dan, Dan, come on, we’re nearly there.” Phil shouted and Dan was entertained to see that he was almost bouncing on the spot, he was like a giant four-year-old child.

They had seen each other pretty much every single day for the last few months since Dan’s return but Dan had still yet to tell him that he was hopelessly in love with him Phil hadn’t mentioned anything either though, so it was making Dan even more hesitant to mention it because he didn’t want to ruin this thing that they had going on, whatever it was.

They had done so much together, Phil had even turned up at Dan’s one morning at three am and they had gone for coffee, just because they had been on Skype to each other and Dan had been whining that he was craving coffee and he didn’t have any in the house.

There was just something so overwhelmingly pure about having Phil around. He made the world seem like a brighter place and he made Dan want to be a better person, he just saw the good in the world wherever Dan saw the bad. He was just such a positive person and he made Dan feel less insecure about the embarrassing shit that he kept doing since his return.

Such as the time he poured tea all over Phil, thankfully it was lukewarm tea but it had been mortifying. They had been sitting in the park, side by side on a bench as they sipped their tea from the Styrofoam takeaway cups and watched the ducks swimming mindlessly in the lake as children threw food to them and laughed as they bobbed their heads below the water to catch the food before it sank to the bottom. Dan had moved to put down his tea but instead of placing it on the floor like any normal person he just let go.

In his defence, that would have been a completely logical thing to do up in space as letting go of something in zero gravity meant that it would just float in the air until it was plucked out again by Dan. Unfortunately, he was on earth and instead of floating, Phil got a lap full of warm tea while Dan looked around himself feeling very confused about where the heck his tea had gone. He even ended up looking above his head before thinking to look down.

Phil hadn’t cared in the slightest, he had watched Dan in amusement as he looked around for his cup before breaking into hysterics. He’d laughed even harder when a sweet old lady had walked up and lectured Dan for ‘throwing coffee all over that sweet man’ and he had been told that violence wasn’t the best way to solve problems. Dan had quickly tried to explain that he thought that it would float but he forgot to mention the fact that he was an astronaut and had recently been in space so he was given a very odd look and the lady scuttled off as though she was worried that she would catch something from him.

That hadn’t been the only time either, Dan had dropped so many things just because he was so used to letting them go, thankfully it was starting to become less common and he hadn’t actually caused anyone any ill effects from his momentary lapses in judgement.

Phil wasn’t taking any risks though, he had prepared some snacks for them to eat when they got to wherever the fuck Phil was taking them and he wasn’t wanting to risk Dan dropping it, so he was carrying the bag.

The top of the hill they were climbing was finally in sight and when they reached it Dan plonked himself on the ground straight away, sprawling out on his back on the grass as though it was the most comfortable surface in the world.

“I have a blanket you know,” Phil said staring down at him with that damn smirk that Dan just wanted to kiss off his stupidly, beautiful face.

“I don’t care, I’m comfy.” Dan said, it was half true technically, he was comfy but there were blades of grass tickling his neck in a way that made his spine crawl.

“Really?” Phil asked with an arched eyebrow, “so I can just leave the blanket in the bag then?”

“What? No,” Dan said, “I mean, theres no point in wasting it, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to carry it all this way.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Phil said and threw the blanket over Dan, covering his face.

“Rude,” Dan mumbled, his voice muffled by the fabric.

Part of the blanket was plucked away from Dan’s face allowing the evening sun to come flooding in, Phil was so much closer to him than he had expected and the way that the dim sunlight filtered through his hair making it look almost blueish caused Dan to pause for a moment, lost for words and unable to even think as he stared directly into Phil’s eyes.

His heart seemed to speed up to an almost dangerous rate and Dan pushed himself up onto his elbows so that their faces were inches apart.

“What’s the plan then?” he asked quietly, almost afraid to speak in case it broke the peaceful spell that had settled over them.

“Well, I’m going to take this blanket back and put it on the ground and not on you and then we’re going to get comfy and have something to eat and watch the sun set, then the fun begins.” Phil said.

“What kind of fun? Do I have to get naked because I’m not sure if I want a bug up my ass?” Dan said.

“What? No!” Phil said his eyes widening almost comically, it was amusing to Dan to tease him about all the accidentally suggestive things that he said, “we’re going to look at the stars.”

“We’re stargazing?” Dan asked excitedly.

“I did promise you that we would, didn’t I?” Phil said.

“You did, I thought that you had forgotten, and you told me that I would need my passport,” Dan said, it had been such a long time ago that they had discussed the idea of going stargazing together.

“I changed my mind about where to take you, this place is important to me so I wanted to share it with you and besides, you should have known better, I would never forget, not after promising you.” Phil said, “this is actually a spot that I came to a lot while you were up in space, I would just lie here and look up and wonder what you were doing.”

Dan wasn’t sure how to respond to that admission, he just stared at Phil as he took the blanket and neatly spread it out on the grass.

“I did the same thing,” Dan finally admitted, sitting up properly and fingering through his hair to get rid of the stray pieces of grass that had wedged themselves between the curls.

“You lay on the grass?”

“No, you Spork, I would look down at Earth and wonder what you were doing, I would wonder what you got up to on your days off, I wanted to talk to you all the time,” Dan admitted.

“I actually went outside and wished you a happy new year at midnight,” Phil admitted to him.

“I wished you a happy new year too,” Dan said.

“Come here,” Phil said softly patting the empty blanket beside him.

Dan did as he was told scooted over so that he was sitting beside Phil. It felt so surreal to be there with him, even after all the time that they had spent together.

“Is it weird that we’ve clicked so well?” Dan asked.

“Why would that be weird?” Phil asked.

“I mean, it shouldn’t be really, but I’ve just never gotten along with anyone else as well as I do with you.” Dan said.

“I know how you feel.” Phil said and Dan was so happy that he genuinely thought that he would be able to fly. He felt lighter and he hadn’t realised that the worry that Phil didn’t feel the same way was weighing him down so much.

But Phil had admitted that he felt that connection too, that special little click that linked them together, how many people could say that they had fallen in love while in space? Dan knew that he needed to relax and chill, Phil hadn’t said anything about love, that was Dan, but there was a slight chance and Dan was trying to work out whether to embrace that slight chance or to accept the fact that they would only ever be friends, it was a difficult choice to make especially as the outcome would end up so differently.

They ate Phil’s little picnic in a comfortable silence as they watched the sun slowly sinking lower and lower and the blue sky darkened into a navy hue. It was insane to Dan to think that he was actually sitting there with Phil. This was the sort of thing that didn’t happen to real people and it most definitely did not happen to Dan. To be sitting on the blanket next to a man who had been so thoughtful and had planned out the entire evening without letting it slip to Dan what they were doing? It was surreal.

The entire night was like something from a movie or a romance novel, except they weren’t a couple and that little fact wouldn’t remove itself from Dan’s brain so he was unable to forget that this was a friendly outing, not a date.

But friends didn’t take their friends for secluded picnics as the sun set and stargazing just for the sake of it and Dan was struggling to forget that. He was clinging desperately to the hope that this was more than a friend trip.

“Hey, Dan? Lie down with me?” Phil asked.

“You don’t even need to ask me twice,” Dan said.

They lay side by side, arms bent above them so that their heads were resting on their hands. Their elbows were touching and Dan could have sworn that there was heat spreading throughout his body from his elbow, as if just the slightest contact with Phil was warming his entire soul.

“The stars are beautiful, it’s funny how they look so good no matter where you see them,” Dan commented, “they’re ethereal and it doesn’t matter whether you're in space and surrounded by them, or down here and only able to see them at night time, they still manage to take my breath away.”

“I love hearing you talk about them,” Phil murmured, “you sound so calm and serene.”

“It’s hard not to be when you’re surrounded by their beauty.”

“They’re pretty, but I know of one thing that’s prettier,” Phil admitted nonchalantly.

“Oh, yeah?” Dan asked. “any clues as to what this ‘prettier thing’ is?”

“Not yet, maybe I’ll tell you later,” Phil said with a tiny shrug that made his elbow up against Dan’s.

“I’m not going to forget.” Dan swore, glancing out of his peripheral vision to see that Phil was looking straight back at him.

“I don’t want you to,”

“Are you going to tell me your favourite constellation now?” Dan asked.

“That’s the plan,” Phil said, “you can actually see it now.”

“Which one is it?” Dan asked.

Phil stretched a hand out in front of them, tracing a pattern in the sky. It was a simple pattern and Dan recognised it instantly but he still waited for Phil to confirm his thoughts.

“Gemini,” Phil whispered, as though afraid that if he spoke up he would disrupt the peace, “the twins.”

“Gemini,” Dan whispered back.

“It was discovered by Ptolemy and was named after the twins Pollux and Castor from Greek Mythology; the two brightest stars are actually called Pollux and Castor and they represent the heads of the twins.” Phil said, and Dan felt a smile spread across his face as he realised how much he had wanted to listen to Phil ramble about the constellations in person, “Castor and Pollux’s mother was Leda, the Queen of Sparta, but they had different fathers.”

“Wait,” Dan interrupted, “if they had different fathers then how can they be classed as twins?”

“It’s Greek Mythology, Dan, you don’t question this stuff.” Phil said teasingly.

“Alright, alright, continue as you were.” Dan said.

“Alright, so Castor’s father was Leda’s husband who was called Tyndarus and he was the King of Sparta but Pollux’s father was Zeus,”

“Of course, it was,” Dan muttered, “those Gods could never keep it in their pants.”

“Shh,” Phil said, “they might smite us or something because you made fun of them.”

“Don’t worry, if Zeus wants to kill someone, I’ll take full responsibility for dissing the fact he apparently fathered fifty trillion kids.” Dan said sarcastically.

“Yeah, you will,” Phil said, “so because Pollux’s father was Zeus, he was actually immortal while his brother Castor was completely mortal. They fought together with their sister Helen of Troy in the Trojan War. When Castor died, Pollux was so upset that Zeus actually decided to make him immortal too and the two of them live forever in the constellation that we now know as Gemini.”

“My star sign is Gemini,” Dan said softly.

“I know,”

Dan thought about that answer for a moment, it was interesting because he wasn’t entirely sure if Phil was saying that he loved the constellation because it was Dan’s star sign or he liked it anyway and it was just a coincidence.

Either way there was something intense about the thought of two brothers having such a strong bond that they literally decided to spend eternity together in the stars. Dan wasn’t sure if there was anyone that he loved enough to spend eternity with. Maybe Phil, but he wouldn’t want to force him to live forever unless he wanted it.

“Would you ever want to live in the stars forever?” Phil asked after a long silence.

“I’m not sure, I think that it would depend who I was with,” Dan admitted, “I spent months on the International Space Station but I didn’t want to stay there forever because the people up there weren’t the best company.”

“Makes sense,” Phil said, “is there anyone who you would say yes to?”

“There is someone in my mind, but I wouldn’t want to force them into something that might make their life a misery.”

“I think that person would be lucky to spend eternity with you.” Phil admitted, pushing himself up into a sitting position so that he was looking down at Dan, and Dan let his eyes trace along his jawline, he took in the way that Phil’s stubble seemed to sharpen his features and how his eyelashes brushed his cheeks whenever he blinked. Was it unreasonable to be jealous of those eyelashes for being able to touch Phil’s cheeks? He wished that he could do that too. He briefly wondered how Phil would react if he just impulsively reached out and stroked along his cheek.

Would he lean in? or would he look at Dan in disgust and pull away? Dan wasn’t sure and that was the only thing that was stopping him from doing it.

“I didn’t bring you up here just to look at the stars,” Phil said at last.

“No?” Dan asked, looking up at him curiously, he couldn’t read Phil’s expression, it was too closed off as though he was debating whether to even go through with what he was saying.

“No, I actually wanted to tell you something and I don’t really know how you’re going to react, I’m thinking that maybe you’ll take it well but I don’t know if my hopes are jading me from reality.” Phil said.

“Phil, it’s alright, I’m a grown up, I’m pretty sure that whatever it is that you have to tell me, I can handle it.” Dan said.

“No running away?” Phil asked.

“I’m still not great at the whole running thing, I think that if I even tried you would be able to catch me,” Dan said with a snort.

“I wouldn’t,” Phil said, “if you ever want to leave I won’t stop you, there’ll be no emotional blackmail or trying to drag you back, I’ll respect your decision.”

“That kinda makes it sound as though you want to kidnap me,” Dan said, “I must say though, you're a very kind kidnapper if you’re planning to let me go if I don’t like it with you.”

“Dan,” Phil whined, the vowel elongated to a frankly ridiculous length, “I’m not a kidnapper.”

“I’m sure that that’s exactly what a kidnapper would say.” Dan teased.

“Stop, what if someone overhears and thinks you're being serious?”

“There’s no one around us, we’re alone, besides if anyone is stupid enough to take that seriously I don’t think they’d have enough brain cells to call the police.”

“Now that’s just mean.”

“But true.”

“Shut up, I was confessing something.” Phil said poking Dan’s side.

“Alright, alright, I’ll be quiet so that you can so the cliché antagonist speech that reveals all of your secrets.”

“I chose Gemini as my favourite constellation because it makes me think of you.” Phil blurted out.

Dan looked up sharply and met his eyes, they were so clear and honest that Dan did not doubt for a second that Phil was telling the truth but he was afraid that maybe he had misheard or was misinterpreting the meaning behind the words.

“It reminds you of me?”

“Yeah, in fact a lot of things remind me of you and at first, I thought that it was kind of weird because I shouldn’t be thinking about my friend twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week,” Phil said, “but then I realised that you weren’t just any old friend. I’ve spoken to you almost every single day of my life for nearly a year now, I can’t imagine not speaking to you, and that’s a bit strange because I have heaps of friends who I don’t speak to every single day and I manage perfectly well.

“So why is it that you’re so different? Why does my heart do a little flippy over thing whenever I see you? Why does your voice soothe me? Why is it that whenever I make you laugh I feel like it’s a huge accomplishment and I can feel happy for a little while knowing that I’ve made you feel good even if it was only briefly?”

“Phil,” Dan said softly, he was voicing almost every thought that Dan had been having.

“Honestly, Dan, it confused me for such a long time before I realised that I was trying to rationalise all these feelings as if you were just my friend, but you’ve never just been my friend and I when I realised that I knew that I was so screwed because the truth is I love you Daniel Howell. I love you and I’ve loved you for so long, I was so scared to tell you because if you didn’t feel the same way then I was going to risk losing you, but I just had to do it, I couldn’t live any longer without telling you the truth. “

“Phil,” Dan murmured, “I feel exactly the same way, I ‘ve been dying inside because I couldn’t risk losing the most important person in my life.”

“Really?” Phil asked, “you really mean that?”

“More than anything,” Dan said, “there were so many nights up there in the space station when I would feel incredibly lonely and I would wish that by some miracle I would wake up beside you on Earth. I would hope that you would randomly decide to call back, every single time you hung up I would wish that I could go back in time and relive every moment of our conversation because it doesn’t matter how long I spend with you, I’m never ready to stop listening to you talk.”

Dan realised that Phil’s face was incredibly close to his own now, all Dan would have to do would be to raise his own head off the blanket and he would be able to kiss him, it was beyond tempting but Phil was speaking again so Dan forced himself to find some restraint.

“You really feel the same way as I do?”

“I love you, Phil Lester.” Dan promised, “nothing will ever be able to change my mind on that fact.”

“This is unbelievable, I was expecting to be shot down or told that you loved me as a friend.” Phil said, “I wasn’t expecting this, it’s like one of the fairy tales that your parents teach you about as a kid.”

“There’s no evil witch, there aren’t any poison apples, this is real and it’s ours.” Dan vowed.

And with that Phil closed the final few inches between them and Dan caught a glimpse of tears in those beautiful eyes before his own fluttered shut allowing his to succumb to the feeling of Phil’s warm lips against his own.

One of Phil’s hands was resting on the blanket beside Dan’s head and the other reached around to cup the back of Dan’s head.

Everything about it was perfect and Dan wished he could ingrain it in his memory, he never wanted to forget the pressure of Phil’s lips moving against his own or the slight scratch of his stubble, Dan reached up to place a hand on the side of Phil’s face, he could feel the slight roughness beneath his fingertips.

Phil’s hand in his hair was the only thing holding Dan together.

It was all too soon when Phil pulled away and Dan found himself moving forward an inch as if chasing his lips. Dan would have happily spent a few hours kissing Phil.

“Don’t worry, we’ll definitely be doing that again,” Phil said.

Dan noticed that his eyes were brighter and he had a red hue across his cheeks, it was easily one of the most attractive things that Dan had ever seen.

“That’s a promise that I’m going to hold you to,” Dan said.

“You’d better.” Phil said. “I love you Dan”

“I love you too, Phil.”

Phil lay back down on the blanket and Dan snuggled into his side, thrilled that he was actually able to do that now.

They had a lot to talk about and Dan still had a long road ahead of him to readjust fully but he knew that they would be walking the road ahead together

“That’s our constellation.” Phil murmured, his breath tickling Dan’s ear as he started tracing out an obscure shape in the sky.

“What’s that meant to be?”

“It’s obvious, it’s a rocket, it’s the reason that we met each other.”

“The Dan and Phil constellation.”

“Every year, I’m going to bring you here and point out that very constellation and tell you the story of two lonely guys who fell in love while they were 400km apart, and you’ll tell me that it’s too unrealistic and I’ll kiss you and remind you that sometimes miracles do happen.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's over, i think i've had approximately 4867 breakdowns over ending this, i hope i've done it justice and i hope you're satisfied with the ending. you've all been so incredibly amazing and all the comments (both here and on tumblr) have made my year! i'd have never made it this far without your kind words of encouragement :') 
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr @philscurls (yes i changed my url and my ao3 if you didnt notice) 
> 
> i love you guys so freaking much <333 xxxxxx
> 
> [Buy Me a Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A108414A)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading pals! you can find me on tumblr if you want @asteroidphil


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